Dodgers' title is legitimate despite shortened season

Images courtesy L.A. Dodgers

After a 32-year drought, the Dodgers have bested the Tampa Bay Rays four games to two, won the World Series and are bringing home the Commissioner’s Trophy.

Like many of yours (probably), my social media feed has been swamped with pictures, video and news of baseball’s newly crowned championship team.

But for every excited Angelino, there seems to be one or two naysayers, ready to point out that the Dodgers’ win is irrelevant, illegitimate, or – worse – asterisked.

Let’s deal with the giant elephant in the room: yes, the 2020 season was short. Instead of the 162 usual games in a season, teams participated in a 60-game sprint.

Does that make the Dodger’s any less worthy of their ultimate success this season?

Absolutely not, and here’s why.

“In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

If we’re all honest with ourselves, we’re lucky we had a baseball season in the first place. Like most every part of life, COVID-19 put into question whether or not players would take the field at all in 2020.

Ultimately, coaches, managers, and players were all dealt the same hand.

Spring Training began, then was abruptly halted. Play resumed in July with a quick preseason. Then came the 60-game regular season. Then an expanded playoff.

Players were allowed to opt out of the season for health and safety concerns. Those who remained to play were subject to daily testing. They played in stadiums full of cardboard.

Moral of the story: while a modified season, it is an official season in the eyes of Major League Baseball. Everyone knew what they were getting into and signing up for when they put their jerseys on.

To say it doesn’t count – especially just because your team lost – is what the great Vin Scully might call “fertilizer.”

Less room for error in the season, plus a harder playoff.

It’s easy to say that the Dodgers didn’t have to do as much work to win their title, and admittedly, yes, they certainly didn’t have to win as many games.

But it can also be argued that the abbreviated season means that every game is just that much more important to win.

In a 60-game season, a potential player – or team – slump becomes that much more dire and important to turn around. On the flip side, keeping a hot team at bay also becomes excruciatingly important (here’s looking at the Padres in September).

There is very little wiggle room; to establish themselves as contenders, teams had to play consistently good baseball.

And then you get to the playoffs.

Yes, the expanded playoffs allowed a couple of sub-par teams to come play with the “big boys” for a handful of games.

That didn’t make the postseason any less grueling.

Instead of the usual three teams (I’m not counting the one-game wildcard, because the Dodgers are not a wildcard team), the blue crew had to grind through four, and – until the World Series – had to do so without the usual days rest in between games.

So, was it a shorter season? Yes.

Was it any less difficult? Hardly.

The Dodgers were going to be in the postseason anyways.

This will be a shorter point, because it’s probably the more hypothetical.

It was no question that the Dodgers would be playing in October.

The Dodgers have won the last eight consecutive National League West titles. They’ve been in three of the last four World Series. They are widely considered to be the best team in baseball, even if they’ve come up just short in past years.

Their dominance is well established, even if they didn’t have the desired hardware to prove it.

The Astros (Yes, I’m going there).

If anyone is going to slap an asterisk on the Dodger’s 2020 title, then you should first do so with the Houston Astros.

I don’t care how many Asterisk-o’s fans have told me to “get over it,” I am still incredibly bitter about 2017.

Houston was proven to have cheated, yet their “title” remains intact. The organization was given a fine and penalty equivalent to a slap on the wrist. Players were protected. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred called the Commissioner’s Trophy “a piece of metal.”

Joe Kelly was suspended for pitching what all of us were thinking.

If you’re going to put an asterisk on something like Barry Bonds’ home run record (and you have no idea how gross I feel defending a Giant, especially THAT Giant), then you should sure as hell do the same with the 2017 World Series “champions.”

The Dodgers may have won in a shortened season, but at least there were no trash cans involved.

Whether you say it was for us fans, Los Angeles, Vin, Kobe, or whatever other reason you may think of, there is no question that the Dodgers put in the work to deserve the glory they are currently enjoying.

Naysayers be damned, the Los Angeles Dodgers are rightful World Series champions.