Justin Turner Takes Shot at Astros for Cheating and Says it's Hard to Consider Them Champions
By Mark Powell
While the Dodgers would surely rather have the 2017 World Series trophy in Los Angeles, this is about as good as it gets for MLB's second-place finisher three years after the fact.
Turner and the Dodgers fell to the Astros in 2017, but as it turns out, Houston was using illegal sign-stealing technology to gain an unfair edge. As all of this has come out, the likes of the Dodgers, who lost in back-to-back seasons to teams which employed (or are alleged to have employed) this unfair strategy in the World Series, are winning in the court of public opinion.
Turner took advantage of this sentiment, stating it's tough to consider the Astros World Series champions.
Justin Turner: “We don’t want a fake banner hanging in our stadium. We didn’t earn that.”
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) January 25, 2020
Damn that's cold.
Considering the series went seven games, it's fair for Los Angeles to feel slighted. The career trajectories of Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen and Dave Roberts were forever altered by the Series defeat in 2017. Kershaw, in particular, has been pained as a choker season after season. A World Series would have served as vindication for the future Hall of Famer and eliminated (at least briefly) the narrative of his postseason struggles.
The first public comments from Dodgers president Stan Kasten following MLB’s report on the Astros’ sign-stealing: "I’d like to have answers to many questions about what happened, by whom and when" pic.twitter.com/5Sc0FhM8FL
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) January 25, 2020
Major League Baseball won't strip the Astros of their World Series in 2017. While the unofficial asterisk is enough for some baseball fans, the Dodgers, in particular, are justified to want more.