Playing with broken fingers, Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo relishes return to World Series

NEW YORK – Anthony Rizzo certainly isn’t taking his return to the World Series lightly.

It’s been eight years since the first baseman last appeared in the World Series, then as a member of the curse-breaking Chicago Cubs, whose 2016 championship marked that franchise’s first in 108 years.

“To be back in the World Series is special,” said Rizzo, now of the Yankees, who begin their much-hyped matchup with the Dodgers on Friday night in Los Angeles.

“You can’t take it for granted,” he said. “Never, ever have I taken any champagne celebration for granted, to get to the playoffs or the next round. You just don’t know when these opportunities will arise, and you have to make the most of them.”

Rizzo’s path to this point was not easy. He missed the final two months of the 2023 season with post-concussion syndrome, a diagnosis he received some two months after being involved in a first-base collision.

Another first-base collision this June left Rizzo with a fractured forearm, costing him more than two months of this season.

He is now playing with two broken fingers in his nonthrowing right hand, an injury he suffered when he was hit by a pitch on Sept. 28 during the second-to-last game of the regular season.

Rizzo, 35, sat out of the ALDS but returned for the ALCS and appeared in each of the Yankees’ five games against the Cleveland Guardians, starting four of them. He went 6 for 14 (.429) with two walks in that series, providing left-handed production from the bottom of the Yankees’ order.

Keeping the swelling down – both during games and in between them – has been key, Rizzo said.

“The adrenaline is real,” Rizzo said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep the swelling out – wrap it between innings and in between at-bats – so you just take it, really, one at-bat at a time, one pitch at a time on defense. For what we’re playing for, during the game I don’t really feel much.”

It’s a moment Rizzo has been working to get back to since 2016.

His title-winning Cubs team sought redemption after being eliminated in the 2015 NLCS by the Mets. It achieved it by beating the Guardians in an instant-classic 2016 World Series that went the distance, with Game 7 going into extra innings.

Rizzo hit .360 with a home run and five RBIs in that World Series.

He is one of the few current Yankees to boast World Series experience heading into Game 1. Juan Soto won a championship with the Washington Nationals in 2019, while Gerrit Cole was a member of the Houston Astros team on the losing end of that World Series.

“Guys ask what it was like,” Rizzo said. “That World Series was arguably one of the best World Series, I would say, ever, right? And now I get to be in what could shape out to be one of the best World Series ever as well. You just have fun. It’s the playoffs. This is the last series of the year.”

Now in his fourth season with the Yankees, Rizzo hopes to help snap a 15-year title drought in the Bronx.

“You live and die by every moment, and … you just have memories for a lifetime with the guys you’re with,” Rizzo said of winning the World Series. “You can’t replace that with anything.”