2025 Q4 Photo Essay
Khai Le
Points for Q4 PPAGLA Quarterly Contest 2025
Points for Q4 PPAGLA Quarterly Contest 2025
Robert Gauthier 710 Points
Ringo Chiu 610 Points
Jill Connelly 490 Points
Gina Ferrazi 470 Points
Cristina Salvador Klenz 470 Points
David Swanson 410 Points
Thomas Cordova 320 Points
Keith Birmingham 310 Points
Mike Goulding 290 Points
Will Lester 280 Points
Robert Hanashiro 210 Points
Terry Pierson 200 Points
Genaro Molina 150 Points
Michael Coons 140 Points
Scott Mitchell 140 Points
Ghawam Kouchaki 140 Points
Dana Rene White 90 Points
Patrick Fallon 90 Points
Jonathan Alcorn 80 Points
Daniel Dreifuss 70 Points
Paul Rodriguez 50 Points
Mindy Schauer 50 Points
William Liang 40 Points
Amy Gaskin 30 Points
Sarah Reingewirtz 20 Points
Ronen Tivony 20 Points
Quarter 4 judges: Diannie Chavez, Rob Schumacher, Mark Henle
A very strong and complete set of photographs from an historic World Series. Congratulations!
First Place
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They were going to win. They were going to lose. All in one breath, all in one month.Win. Lose. Win. Lose. Win. Lose.Win!!!Weeks later the chest still pounds, the throat still thickens, the mind still has not completely grasped.The Dodgers won their second consecutive World Series championship this fall in pure dramatic art.A catch worthy of a statue. An out at home plate by history-making inches. A cheating outfielder steals a victory. A struggling first baseman steals a marathon. A sore-handed catcher steals a title.The greatest postseason game by one player in baseball history. The greatest World Series by one pitcher in baseball history. The greatest moment by a Dodgers benchwarmer in baseball history, a guy so embedded in the landscape of Los Angeles sports that he forever will be known simply by two abbreviated versions of his name...Miggy Ro.Enough said.It’s perhaps appropriate today to give thanks for the drama, thanks for the art, thanks for the breathtaking uncertainty of the diamonds of October.Thanks, baseball, for creating the tableau for the Dodgers’ 13 most memorable playoff moments, one for every win, one for every scream, one for every occasion when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier. - Bill Plaschke Blue Jays catcher Reese McGuire leaves the scene as Dodgers rush to celebrate an 18th inning walk-off homer by teammate Freddie Freeman to win game 3 of the World Series.
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World Series MVP Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is embraced by team interpreter Will Ireton after sealing the championship in game 7 against the Blue Jays. In the epic 2025 World Series Game 7, Yamamoto, pitching on no rest after a Game 6 start, came in as a reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers and secured the championship by closing out the Toronto Blue Jays in 2 2/3 scoreless innings, earning World Series MVP honors as the Dodgers won 5-4 in extra innings. He stranded the tying run at third base in the 11th, sealing the Dodgers' repeat championship.
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Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing embraces Andy Pages after the centerfielder caused a game winning error in the 11th inning to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 in game four of the National League Divisional Series at Dodger Stadium. Pages hit a slow roller that led to a walk-off win on a costly error by Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering, who overthrew home plate after fielding the ball, allowing the winning run to score. Pages' broken-bat, two-hopper to the mound forced the error, ending the Phillies' season and sending the Dodgers to the NLCS.
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Dodgers pitcher Anthony Banda joins teammates in a beer shower as they celebrate winning the National League Division Series after beating the Phillies three games to one.
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The tossing of seeds is a recent Dodgers tradition well earned by catcher Will Smith who homered in the 11th inning of Game 7 for a 5-4 lead over the Blue Jays and ultimately the MLB championship.
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Andrés Giménez hit a one-out line drive to left that was just a little too far off the end of his bat, cracking the lumber as the ball made impact. In the outfield, Kiké Hernández heard the sound, and let instinct take over as he ran to field it.“For a split second, as Glasnow threw the ball, the crowd got quiet,” Hernández said afterward. “I was able to hear that the bat broke, so I just got a really good jump on the ball. And I came in.”By breaking in toward the infield, Hernández was in perfect position to make the highlight-reel play that followed: He caught the ball on the run, despite losing it in the lights ever so briefly; contorted his body to quickly throw to second, having peripherally “felt” baserunner Addison Barger drift too far off the bag; then delivered a one-hop strike that was cleanly picked off the dirt by teammate Miguel Rojas.Double play. Game over.Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 3-1 in Game 6 of the World Series.
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Shortstop Mookie Betts begins to celebrate as does first baseman Freddie Freeman seconds after turning a championship winning double play in the 11th inning of game 7 against the Blue Jays.
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Dodgers outfielder Alex Call zips past Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering who committed an 11th inning throwing error to give the Dodgers a 2-1 win and the National League Division Championship.
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Will Smith is mobbed by Dodgers teammates after homering in the 11th inning for a 5-4 lead over the Blue Jays in Game Seven of the World Series.
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Toronto Blue Jays third base coach Carlos Febles walks off the field as Dodgers celebrate as MLB champions after game 7 of the World Series.
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Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto comes up for air as he is mobbed by teammates after closing out a 5-4 World Series clinching win over the Blue Jays.
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Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw effusively embraces the Commissioner’s Trophy after winning his third World Series championship with Los Angeles.
Second Place
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A homeless man injects himself with a syringe on a sidewalk across the street from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025.
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Homeless people rest near the statue of Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.
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A group huddles while smoking at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
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A homeless man is passed out next to drug paraphernalia at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
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A homeless man smokes from a drug pipe as another man sleeps nearby at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Dec. 22, 2025.
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A homeless woman is passed out next to drug paraphernalia at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.
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Homeless people huddle at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
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People experiencing homelessness gather and move through MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on Dec. 22, 2025. Some individuals hold pipes as they stand along a walkway in the park.
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A young girl walks with her parents past homeless people using a syringe with a needle on a sidewalk across the street from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025.
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A man lies on a walkway at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025.
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Personal belongings and debris are seen along a sidewalk at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, where a person rests beside the park.
Third Place
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Many of the workers had emigrated from the same agricultural town in Sinaloa. They had worked on their parents’ farms, before crossing illegally into the U.S. They teased one another, complained about overbearing mothers-in-law and celebrated milestones, like a daughter’s quinceañera.In the three months of harvest that brought them together, they endured six-day workweeks, picking mini watermelons and cantaloupes in summer temperatures that sometimes topped 100 degrees. One day’s work at the peak of the season could yield 12,000 watermelons for just one crew.As Trump has directed ICE and Border Patrol to nab more undocumented immigrants, dramatic images have mostly focused on raids in cities. America’s agricultural fields have, perhaps surprisingly given prior immigration enforcement there, taken a back seat.There have been agricultural raids, including in Oxnard, where video captured immigration authorities chasing a farmworker across a strawberry field, and at a cannabis farm in Camarillo where a fieldworker plunged from a roof to his death trying to evade capture. But President Trump has also acknowledged pressure from farmers, who say his aggressive immigration crackdown is taking away longtime workers.Besides, the president told CNBC in August: “These people do it naturally.” He signaled that he was open to finding a way for agricultural workers to do the jobs legally.That did not blot out the fear in many fields that raids could happen at any moment. But a far stronger feeling pervaded fields such as this one: That for now, as in the past, one simply had to work because everything counted on it.A man in his 60s, his eyebrows and hair going white, who planned to work until his body gave out and wondered how much longer he had. An undocumented mother worried more for her son, a college graduate whose deportation protection feels under threat. A woman on a tourist visa working illegally to earn enough to hold her over when she returns to Mexico
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The cutting crew stoops over ripe melons, cutting well before pickers roll by to gather them. This year, one of the crews that had served the farm for 10 years didn’t show. They were from out of state and the owner suspected they feared getting on the road due to the raids. Under Trump, it’s hard for workers to tell how safe they will be in different places.“Trump came out saying we’ve got to do something for the farmers — farmworkers. And then the next day [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem says, no we’re going to deport them all,” said the owner of the farm, a Trump supporter, who has been confused by the mixed messaging. “We don’t know what to think. Who’s going to make the final decision?
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These men are part of an aging workforce, with a 64% increase in California farmworkers ages 55 to 64, between 2009 and 2019, according to a UC Merced Community and Labor Center report. In the following decade, the report warned, there’d be “a wave of retiring farmworkers unlike any other in the state’s modern history.”
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Esteban had left his parents’ farm in Sinaloa in northern Mexico at 17 and came here, like everyone else, searching for the fabled American dream. He worked the land, as he’d done back home, earning enough to later support five children, but enduring the hardship that came with being undocumented.There were years, in the 1980s, when la migra was a familiar sight, chasing and tackling workers who had no criminal record but were in the country illegally. Esteban himself was caught and deported, although he said he escaped more times than he was captured. Back then, he said, the border was less secure and workers were often back in the fields by the next day.It wasn’t until after President Reagan’s amnesty came in 1986 — the last major comprehensive immigration reform — that Esteban had a pathway to legal status. The other men on the line, in their 50s and 60s, had similarly gotten amnesty after years toiling in the fields.
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They had already covered nearly 1,000 feet and filled 350 boxes when breaking for lunch. Picking 2,300 watermelons.Inside a trailer, the farmworkers spread out on wooden benches. A couple of men flipped tortillas by hand on a small grill. Others chugged soda to give them energy.“Quieres taquitos? Ándale,” they said, offering food to one another.Rosario, the foreman’s wife, had woken up at 4:30 a.m., as she always does, to make the couple a lunch of homemade tortillas, green beans and refried beans. (That was nothing, she told me. She once made breakfast for 10 farmworkers before going to the hospital to have her youngest son.)The men watched videos on their phones and teased one another about their love lives. Even I was teased, with Raul saying I was already as red as the crew would get in the peak of summer.
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During the harvest season, workers spend six days on the job with only one day off.
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Farmworkers had picked most of the watermelons in a field days earlier, but returned to harvest the remaining fruit once it was ripe.
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Aging workers labor ‘until the body gives out,’ driven by dreams that their children — some college-educated — will escape lives spent harvesting crops.
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Angel has worked in the fields since the eighth grade, after his mom bought him a Social Security card and an identification card for $150. The ID has his picture on it, but the name of someone he doesn’t know. That’s the name that comes on his checks and whom he signs in as when he works.“That’s how mostly everybody in the field works,” Angel said. “Even if you work under a fake social, they still take the taxes away. It’s not like you’re not paying taxes for your stuff.”After half an hour, the workers packed up their food and headed into the field once more.“Back to the American dream,” a farmworker joked.“El sueño Americano nos consume,” Raul said. “The American dream eats us alive.”
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A tractor hauls a load of melons. During the peak of the season, one crew could harvest 12,000 watermelons in one day.
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Honorable Mention
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Dodgers fans gather outside The Douglas bar in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, to watch the final game of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. Nov 1st, 2025.
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A Dodgers fan sets up an iPad to livestream the game for other fans outside The Douglas bar in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, during the final game of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans celebrate their World Series victory over the Toronto Blue Jays outside The Douglas bar in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Nov 1st, 2025.
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LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT (LAPD) officers push celebrating Dodgers fans down a street, forcing them to disperse in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, following the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans take over a street and celebrate following their World Series victory in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans take over streets in Downtown Los Angeles and set off fireworks to celebrate the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans pose for a photo next to graffiti that reads "DODGERS FUND ICE" on a wall in Downtown Los Angeles as celebrations continue for the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans drink and celebrate in the middle of the intersection at 7th Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles following the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans drink and celebrate in the middle of the intersection at 7th Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles following the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans spray paint a Metro bus in Downtown Los Angeles during celebrations following the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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Dodgers fans surround, and one kicks, a COCO delivery robot in the middle of an intersection in Downtown Los Angeles during celebrations following the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
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A motorcyclist rides through a crowd during a street takeover at an intersection in Downtown Los Angeles as Dodgers fans celebrate the team's World Series victory. Nov 1st, 2025.
Meet your judgeS
Diannie Chavez is a staff photographer at The Arizona Republic. She joined the visuals team after graduating from Arizona State University in 2022. Prior to her role at The Republic, she worked with PHOENIX Magazine, News21 and Cronkite News in Washington, D.C.
Rob Schumacher is a senior staff photographer at The Arizona Republic & USA TODAY Network since 1990. In addition to hundreds of state, regional, and national awards, Rob was the 2020 Arizona Photographer of the Year.
Mark Henle is a senior staff photographer for The Arizona Republic & USA TODAY Network. since 1984. He started his career at the age of 14 working for his family ‘s bi-weekly newspaper in Marshall, MN. Mr. Henle has two hundreds of state, regional and national awards.