Battle of the World Series WAGs

The World Series is finally upon us and the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are expected to produce a battle for the ages. It will be the 12th time the two historic franchises compete for the highest honor in baseball - with Game 1 set to take place in California on Friday night. The Yankees have not competed in the World Series for 15 years but made it back thanks to an epic win over the Cleveland Guardians. Shohei Ohtani has proven to be worth every penny for the big-spending Dodgers, who have assembled the best roster in baseball. While the match up on the field is too close to call, how do the WAGs representing both franchises stack up against each other? Big-hitting Judge and Bracksieck are high school sweethearts, having met in Linden, California. She first appeared on his Instagram account in 2014 and they both would go on to study at Fresno State University. Bracksieck was honored in 2017 for writing a master's thesis in kinesiology. The projected looked at elbow ligament injuries in Major League Baseball. The couple got married in a private ceremony at the Montage Kapalua Bay Resort in Maui, Hawaii in December 2021. Plenty of Yankees players were in attendance. Bracksieck was arrested in October 2020 for extreme DUI and four other charges while in Arizona for spring training. She was pulled over because her headlights were off. Embarrassingly, she even namechecked Judge to police officers during the arrest, asking them: 'Do you know who my boyfriend is?' The couple are regular attendees at New York sports events, appearing at New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets games, as well as the US Open. The Yankees first baseman and his wife Emily swapped Chicago for New York in 2021, having won a World Series title with the Cubs in 2016. The three-time All-Star also proposed to Vakos with a firework display on Lake Michigan before they got married in December 2018 in Florida. Vakos graduated from Arizona State University in 2016 with a degree in nutrition and food management. While studying, she got an internship with the Cubs nutrition department in her final year and it was at spring training in Arizona that she met Rizzo. Despite initially giving Rizzo a fake phone number, he once joked he was 'relentless' in pursuing Vakos and his efforts clearly paid off. Despite his success on the field, Vakos has previously admitted it took time to get used to being married to a baseball star. 'I'll be picking out bananas and then I'll find him doing a photo shoot with the entire Whole Foods,' she shared with Chicago Splash in 2017. 'We walk into places and the next thing you know we're saying hello and taking pictures,' he added. 'It's great to do that, but [sometimes we're just] trying to go on a date.' Pitcher Cole met his wife Amy during their time on the baseball and softball teams at UCLA. They initially started off as friends, becoming close when working out in the weight room during mornings on campus. She took over a year to accept his invitation for a date, however. Amy won the College World Series with the Bruins in 2010 while Gerrit became the first UCLA player to be chosen first overall in the MLB draft. After dating for a number of years, they got married in 2016 at The Ritz-Carlton in Santa Barbara. Three years on, Cole signed a staggering nine-year contract with the Yankees worth $324million. Not long after their move to the Big Apple, the couple announced they were pregnant and Amy gave birth to son Caden in June 2020. They have since had a second son, Everett, in January 2023. Catcher Wells has been solid for the Yankees all season defensively, but has struggled with the bat at times. He signaled a return to form with a home run in Game X against the Guardians and Yankees fans will be hoping he can produce something special against the Dodgers. The couple went to see The Rolling Stone at MetLife Stadium in May and enjoyed a short vacation together in July before the business end of the baseball season started. Ohtani's unprecedented first season with the Dodgers has brought the Japanese slugger to the brink of achieving his ultimate goal of winning a World Series. He signed a record 10-year, $700million contract in December and made the stunning decision to defer collecting $680m of that to give the team more flexibility to sign top talent for a tilt at the championship. But, in late February, Ohtani made headlines again by announcing he had got married. Initially he did not reveal his wife's identity but later made it known that he had wed Mamiko Tanaka, a former professional basketball player in Japan. Tanaka played for Waseeda University before entering the pro ranks in 2019 with the Fujitsu Red Wave of the Women's Japan Basketball League. The 5-foot-11 forward played with the Red Wave for four years before retiring in 2023. In her last season, Tanaka shot 47.7 percent from the field and 69.9 percent from the free throw line across 28 games, per ESPN. Tanaka also represented Japan in international competitions at the U16, U17, and U18 divisions. Betts, the superstar right fielder for the Dodgers, married longtime love Brianna Hammonds in a stunning beachside ceremony at Terranea Resort in Rachos Palos Verdes, California in 2021. The high school sweethearts got engaged in Nashville earlier that year after 15 years of dating. The couple also have two children, daughter Kynlee and son Kaj Lynn. The two began dating at teenagers when Mookie was a baseball standout at John Overton High School in Oakhill, Tennessee. The five-time Gold Glove Award recipient and four-time Silver Slugger Award winner was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 2011 after a great college career at the University of Tennessee. He later made his MLB debut in 2014. He led the Red Sox to their first title in five years in 2018 before switching over to the West Coast and earning a 2021 World Series win with the Dodgers. Brianna graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 2015. Together they co-founded the 5050 foundation, which raises money to cover medical and financial needs for children. A regular in the stands at Betts' games, Brianna has been supporting her husband since they were at school and you can be sure she'll be front and center of the World Series action. Freeman is the third member of the Dodgers' feared hitting lineup, alongside Ohtani and Betts. He and wife Chelsea started dating in June 2011 while she was at college. He was drafted straight out of high school by the Atlanta Braves in 2007. Before they got married, Chelsea appeared on reality TV show 'Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta'. They eventually wed in November 2014 at the St. Regis Bal Harbour in Miami Beach. The pair share three sons: Charlie, who was born in 2016, and Brandon John and Maximus Turner. They arrived two months apart in 2020 and 2021 via surrogacy and Chelsea’s pregnancy. The couple had a terrifying scare earlier this year when Maximus was diagnosed with a rare nerve disease at the age of three. Freeman and his wife Chelsea announced in August that Max had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome after being rushed to hospital with what they described as 'full body paralysis'. Max began to lose sensation in his feet before that numbness spread to his shoulders and ultimately affected his breathing. He was rushed to an Orange County hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator. Freeman took time away from baseball to look after his family, missing nine days. Chelsea is the founder and owner of the Chelsea Freeman Collection, an online store that sells fashionable sporting merchandise. They sell apparel for Atlanta and L.A - two cities that the couple have spent a lot of time in. Slugging outfielder Teoscar Hernandez may not get all the plaudits but he could be a key player for the Dodgers in this World Series. Little is known about the Dominican's wife, Jennifer, but the couple have three children together: Julian, Teoscar Jr and Mateo Javier. It's believed they got married in July 2019 and are thought to have been together for 10 years. She first appeared on his Instagram in 2014 and the couple have moved around together from Tampa Bay to Seattle and now to Los Angeles.