When Magic Johnson posted, “I hate that the Celtics officially have more championships than us now, “last year after the Boston Celtics won their last NBA title, he meant it. That same spirit that produced the legendary “junior sky hook” is still burning in him. He rarely misses a chance to remind everyone what a real rivalry feels like, and this time the stage was Dodgers’ Stadium during a special “All-Access event” for fans.

When Johnson was asked to name the baseball equivalent of his legendary Celtics rivalry, he said, “Well, right now it’s the Padres for us, you know, that but the same thing, they hate us.”  Then Magic acknowledged, “When I first got here, it was the Giants, so many meaningful games against the Giants. I mean, it was something else.” The Dodgers blew an eighth-inning lead at San Francisco in the last game, just a year after Johnson joined the Lakers in 1979.

Then many days passed, and the city has witnessed so many names come and go, but the name that remains constant was Magic Johnson. Then, in 2012, when the 5 time champion became the co-owner of the city’s most iconic baseball team, his name became a part of this long, historic timeline. And the rivalry part also evolved from the Giants to the Padres during this time, and that became too intense in recent years that he had to drop the ultimate crossover comparison, referencing his own history.

“This remind me this year reminds me of 88 when we had won the championship in 87, and now we were trying to go back-to-back, and we found out how difficult it was going to be for us to do that, and this season has been the same to me like the season we went through in 88,” Johnson shared, referencing the grueling season his Lakers fought to win back-to-back titles as an analogy for the Dodgers’ current grind where they are sitting just two game ahead of their division rival Padres.

Magic’s words were not just talk, and so many people were on the same page with him.

Baseball’s hottest rivalry right now..

Just after the Dodgers and Padres’ last series this season,  Ken Rosenthal said, “I want to talk about which is the better one right now. Frankly? I don’t even see it as close. Give me Dodgers-Padres right now over Yankees-Red Sox.” Rosenthal prioritized the Dodgers-Padres rivalry over the most iconic rivalry of baseball to date.

But let’s be honest, the Dodgers and Padres rivalry was mostly one-sided. From 1969 to 2019, the Dodgers led the Padres by over 100 games, 539–436.

Everything changed during the shortened 2020 season when the Padres emerged as a real threat by acquiring players like acquire stars like Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, and Blake Snell. And the tension first boiled when Trent Grisham stared down Clayton Kershaw after hitting a solo homerun off the right field in September 2020.

Then it continued to the second game of the 2020 NLDS after Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger’s home run robbery. And with the years it goes on and on..

And rivalry had reached its peak when the 89-win Padres slayed the 111-win Dodgers in the 2022 NLDS after a wild-card entry. This 3-1 series win was their first time beating the Dragons on the big stage.

And this season? The Dodgers-Padres 7-game series in June has seen multiple bench clearances, both manager ejections. Though the Dodgers have won 9 of their 13 games but they are just 2 games ahead of their NL West rivals.

They will not face each other in the regular series for this season anymore, but as the postseason approaches, another exciting NLDS battle is looming over the baseball world.