In the wake of the Houston Astros being found guilty for electronic sign-stealing and the Boston Red Sox also being investigated, the Los Angeles City Council is attempting to take drastic measures.
The L.A. Dodgers were defeated by the Astros and Red Sox in back-to-back World Series’, which prompted the City Council recently unanimously approving a vote to urge Major League Baseball to strip both franchises of their championships and award them to the Dodgers.
Punishments for the Astros after an investigation concluded they were guilty included one-year suspensions for general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch, as well as a $5 million fine and the loss of future draft picks.
While some fans are upset that the Astros didn’t have their title taken away, most also don’t necessarily feel it would be right to award it to L.A.
In an interview with FOX Business, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred echoed that last thought, explaining it would be impossible to determine the Dodgers would have won the World Series if there was no illegal sign-stealing, especially in the case of 2018 since the Red Sox have not been found guilty yet:
“There’s a couple of problems. We haven’t concluded our investigation with the Red Sox, so it’s a little hard to take the trophy away from somebody who hasn’t yet been found to do something wrong; we don’t know what the outcome of that is going to be.
“I think the second flaw is, whatever the impact of the sign stealing was, it could’ve changed who was in the World Series. Absolutely unclear that the Dodgers would have been the World Series champion. I think there’s a long tradition in baseball of not trying to change what happened. I think the answer from our perspective is to be transparent about what the investigation showed and let our fans make their own decision about what happened.”
Regardless of if the championships are taken away or not, baseball fans will not forget what took place, especially in 2017 with the Astros. They have since fired both Luhnow and Hinch in an attempt to start a new chapter but that World Series trophy will forever have an asterisk next to it.
As far as the Dodgers go, the past cannot be changed so their focus should remain on trying to break their 32-year championship drought in 2020.
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