Iowan Tony Watson headed to the World Series

One by one, the Los Angeles Dodgers stood in the visiting clubhouse at Wrigley Field Thursday night and passed around the National League Championship trophy, pouring alcohol in it and taking chugs.

It eventually made its way to Iowan Tony Watson who celebrated his first trip to the World Series by lifting the prized possession and taking a pull from it like the rest of his teammates.

“It was like a beer luge, champagne luge,” Watson said in a telephone interview with The Register. “Everybody’s jumping up and down in those moments. Everybody’s just having a blast. It’s like you’re little kids out there.

“Those celebrations are always fun and it just seemed like the champagne was never ending (Thursday) night. The beers were never ending. We had a nice little celebration down there in Wrigley."

Watson had plenty to celebrate Thursday night after helping the Dodgers back to the World Series for the first time since 1988. The Dodgers solidified their spot by beating the Chicago Cubs 11-1 in Game 5 of the NLCS at Wrigley Field Thursday night.

The 32-year-old Iowan was in the middle of it all. Watson, a former star at Dallas Center-Grimes High School, played an important part for the Dodgers out of the bullpen. The southpaw shut down the Cubs' strong left-handed hitting bats by tossing 2.1 scoreless innings over four outings.

 “I thought I threw the ball well,” Watson said. “(Manager) Dave Roberts said he was going to get me in some high-level situations verses lefties and they have some good lefties in their lineup obviously.”

No one may have been more familiar with that than Watson who began his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who drafted him in the ninth-round of the 2007 draft. Watson made his big-league debut in 2011.

One of his best seasons came in 2014 when he was an All-Star. Watson started 2017 as Pittsburgh's closer but struggled at the end of games and eventually lost the job. With free agency looming after the season, the Pirates traded Watson to the Dodgers before the deadline. 

“The first thing that I thought of when I saw the Dodgers is, I’ve got a chance to potentially play in a World Series,” Watson said. “That’s everybody’s ultimate goal that plays this game is to win a World Series. A lot of guys sacrifice a lot with family life and the off-season — just getting the body ready and doing it every year and then the ups and downs of an 162-game season and sticking together with your brothers for six, seven months is a special bond.”

The Dodgers needed help in their bullpen and Watson provided it. In 24 regular season games with the Dodgers this season, Watson went 2-1 with a 2.70 earned run average. Watson helped the Dodgers mostly in late game situations before Roberts would hand the ball off to closer Kenley Jensen.

“This team is just really, really special and just really deep and the supporting cast that they’ve put together here around the super starts that we do have, because we do have them, is pretty special,” Watson said.

Ever since the postgame celebration, Watson said he’s been trading texts back and forth with friends and family members congratulating him. 

“It’s one of the best competitions on the planet with the seven-game series and the fall classic,” Watson said. “Everybody’s watching. It’ll be a lot of fun.