With the Astros and Dodgers set to face off in the World Series, baseball fans can party like it's ... um ... 1981? Sure, that works. We'll also accept every other season from 1962 through 2012.
While the Houston-Los Angeles matchup won't add to a historic postseason rivalry the way a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would have, the two teams do have their own long history after playing in the same division for several decades and facing off nearly 1,000 times. Names like Nolan Ryan, Steve Garvey, Glenn Davis and Pedro Guerrero filled the box scores, and they definitely produced some classics — both in the regular season and in the postseason.
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Here's a look back:
Astros beat Dodgers in Game 163 to win NL West (1980)
Houston and Los Angeles battled all summer in 1980 for first place in the NL West, and the two teams finished tied after 162 games — necessitating a winner-take-all Game 163 at Dodger Stadium. The Astros, riding a complete game gem from Joe Niekro, won the game 7-1 to make the playoffs for the first time in team history.
Playoff battle: 1981 NLDS
Thanks to the 1981 baseball strike, MLB had a one-time division series that season to determine which teams would represent the NL East and NL West in the NLCS. That meant the battle for the West came down to a five-game series between the Dodgers and Astros, and both teams brought the drama.
The Astros took the first two games at home, with both wins coming in walk-off fashion. In Game 1, Alan Ashby hit a two-run homer in the ninth off Dave Stewart to cap the win.
Then in Game 2, the teams played to a 0-0 tie into the bottom of the 11th inning before Denny Walling played the hero with a game-ending single off Tom Niedenfuer, again making a loser of Stewart.
That was the last time the Astros would celebrate that series, however. Once the series shifted to Los Angeles, the Astros' bats went ice-cold and the Dodgers stormed back to take Games 3, 4 and 5 and advance to the NLCS.
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Nolan Ryan's fifth no-hitter (1981)
Just a few weeks before they met in that NLDS, the Astros and Dodgers squared off in a regular-season game that came with a bit of history: Nolan Ryan's fifth career no-hitter. Ryan struck out 11 and walked three on Sept. 26 as Houston won 5-0.
22-inning marathon (1989)
We can only hope the 2017 World Series is as dramatic and crazy as the Dodgers and Astros made it on June 3, 1989, when they played 22 innings over more than 7 hours and pretty much defined the term "weird baseball." This was a normal baseball game through the sixth inning, but then the teams embarked on a Level 5 scoreless drought that lasted well into the next day and led to some baseball insanity. We won't cover it all here, but this is all you need to know: The game ended when Houston's Rafael Ramirez got a hit off position player Jeff Hamilton with pitcher Fernando Valenzuela playing first base. Read that sentence again. Or just watch.
Astros beat LA to clinch division (1999)
The Astros and Dodgers were no longer in the same division by 1999, but the two teams still faced off in significant games, including on Oct. 3, 1999, when the Astros clinched the NL Central with a win over Los Angeles in the final regular-season game ever at the historic Astrodome.
Mike Fiers' no-hitter (2015)
Although the Astros moved to the American League in 2013, they've still had a few meetings with the Dodgers. One of those, on Aug. 21, 2015, added something to the overall rivalry when Mike Fiers no-hit the Dodgers in a 3-0 win. Fiers nearly matched Ryan's line from his 1981 no-hitter, striking out 10 and walking three.
So there you go, a few highlights drawn from 50-plus years of Astros-Dodgers matchups.
There's already a lot of Houston-LA history on which baseball fans can reminisce as we look forward to Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday. Given the talent on this year's teams, we can assume a new, drama-filled chapter is about to unfold.