Obviously when the news broke Tuesday that Major League Baseball ruled on the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, a ripple effect began from the fans to people formerly in the Dodgers organization.
Of course, the Dodgers felt the shockwaves of this scandal as closely as anyone. For instance, check out Gail Johnson’s latest piece.
Now former Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti joins AM570 LA Sports to talk about the scandal. His quotes are pretty telling about how serious of a deal all of this is for anyone involved with the game of baseball.
.@realnedcolletti: "It makes me sick actually to think about it.
The team I love and the team I work for were some ways perhaps cheated out of a World Series." (?: @RogginAndRodney) https://t.co/OTdYl1hQjK
— AM 570 LA Sports (@AM570LASports) January 13, 2020
First, Colletti speaks from the heart in that he feels great pain for the Dodgers loss in the gut wrenching 2017 World Series loss.
“It makes me sick actually to think about it. The team I love and the team I work for were some ways perhaps cheated out of a World Series.”
Next, Colletti is asked by Rodney Peete how he views the manner in which the Astros stole signs and cheated.
“It’s a systematic way of cheating the integrity of the game, a winning at all costs attitude. That’s what it was, and it can’t be. It can’t be that way.”
Then, Colletti is asked if baseball can make Houston vacate the 2017 World Series title in his opinion.
“I don’t know if they can or they can’t, but I have known Rob Manfred for a long time. Probably 40-something years. He’s very smart and this falls on him to make the decisions that he made which were unprecedented. I’m not sure what goes into that part of the decision making and whether you strip them of the title. You’ve seen it done in NCAA sports. It’s a very complicated decision, and not one that is easily sorted out.”
It’s good to hear such a passionate baseball man talk about these issues, especially one as near and dear to Dodgers baseball as Colletti is. You can plan on a lot more reactions like Colletti’s here in the days to come. This story isn’t over, it’s only just begun.
