Boston Red Sox fans will find the Los Angeles City Council's latest resolution patently ridiculous.
Rob Manfred seems to agree.
The Major League Baseball commissioner addressed the L.A. City Council's resolution requesting the league strip the 2017 Houston Astros and 2018 Red Sox of their World Series titles due to their involvement in cheating scandals and reward each championship to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the losing team in both of those series.
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"There's a couple of problems with (that)," Manfred said Wednesday during a TV appearance on FOX Business. "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."
MLB still is investigating the 2018 Red Sox for allegedly using a video room to illegally steal signs, and while former Boston manager Alex Cora is expected to receive a harsh punishment for his role in that scheme and the Astros' sign-stealing operation, slugger J.D. Martinez believes the league won't find any evidence of wrongdoing.
Even if MLB punishes the Red Sox, though, Manfred seemingly has no plans to strip them or the Astros of their championships.
"The second flaw is, whatever the impact of the sign-stealing was, it could have changed who was in the World Series. (It's) absolutely unclear that the Dodgers would have been the World Series champion.
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"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."
MLB's investigation into the Astros alone already has impacted the future of three teams, as Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow, Houston manager A.J. Hinch, Cora and New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran all lost their jobs.
But Manfred and the league are stopping short of altering the past.
