Although the Los Angeles Dodgers won their first World Series since 1988, several headlines have been centered around Justin Turner, who was removed from the game in the eighth inning of Game 6 due to a positive coronavirus (COVID-19) test.
Turner originally was not able to celebrate his first career World Series win on the field with teammates, but he eventually came out to take pictures with the trophy and be part of a team photo despite MLB protocols calling for a player to be isolated.
It opened the door for criticism, though Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman was quick to note Turner wore a mask for the majority of his time on the field and was around those who had already been exposed to him.
Turner’s teammates have also come to his defense, and the latest to do so was Blake Treinen in an interview on Mad Dog Sports Radio:
“We all have J.T.’s back. I think the general public isn’t really given a lot of the truth involved in that. It’s really unfair what’s happened to him. Without going into details, I feel like MLB needs to be supporting him more than they’re smearing him the way they did. That guy has given 10 years to the league, he’s been a phenomenal ambassador for the game. He asked if he could come on the field and people escorted him out there. It’s not like he ran out there like they’re saying it.
“My thing is this, why does it have to be blame him, blame them? It’s not the player versus the league, it shouldn’t be league versus player. It should be, ‘Hey, look, we did our best interest to keep you guys safe. It failed, we don’t know why. So instead of us pointing fingers, we support you guys and are going to what it takes to get you healthy, we’re going to make sure your family has what it needs to get healthy. And everybody else who has been exposed, we apologize, we don’t know how this happened. Let’s fix it.’
“Instead, there’s this casting the blame, this smearing like Justin is a terrible person. Justin is one of the greatest teammates I’ve ever had. For people to go out there and start tweeting these reports instantly about how irresponsible it is, those are the same people who are doing things irresponsible within our own bubble. I’m behind J.T. all the way, our players are. There’s a lot of stuff that happened. I get it, living in a bubble so long, it sucks. But the players, we were literally hotel, eat, field, hotel. Wake up, eat, field, hotel. There was no room for anything. Blame it on a player, that’s not us. It might be somewhere else where somebody came in and maybe wasn’t tested thoroughly. I have no idea. But I’m tired of this narrative against Justin.
“The league and the players, that’s got to be resolved and there needs to be some type of common ground where they’re supporting each other in this. No one created the coronavirus. No one wants this thing to hurt everybody. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s a virus. It’s going to do its thing. Instead of just casting the blame and berating somebody, let’s fix this, be unified and move forward.”
Turner has not yet spoken since heading home from Texas, and neither has the organization in an official matter. Every indication thus far is the Dodgers have not experienced more positive test results.
Roberts voluntarily sat next to Turner for team photo
Part of the controversy surrounding Turner was predicated on him sitting next to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts for the team photo. Roberts is a cancer survivor and could be at high risk for coronavirus, but he said he voluntarily sat next to his team leader and didn’t have a problem with Turner celebrating with the team.
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