Christopher Tully

On Tuesday, October 10, the Los Angeles Dodgers played the Tampa Bay Rays for game six of a hard-fought World Series. The game was played as every other had been. But there was one outlier among the game. Dodgers third baseman, Justin Turner, was suddenly pulled in the eighth inning of the game.  

This began to raise confusion at first. It then later came out that Turner had tested positive for Covid-19. The Dodgers went on to win their first World Series since 1988. As any athlete or person with a competitive edge would, Turner wanted to be there to celebrate with his team in this great moment in his career.  

Turner ran out on the field to take pictures with his teammates and the trophy itself. This, of course, sparked outrage all over the league. Kurt Streeter, in The New York Times wrote, “Justin Turner, it’s time for you to apologize. I lived in Los Angeles long enough to know how much you mean to the Dodgers — and to L.A. baseball fans who have watched you, a native Southern Californian, become the late-blooming linchpin of a team that just won its first World Series in 32 years.”  

Turner received many such comments, stating how as a public figure, he should have stayed inside and not risked any other harm. His teammates jumped to his defense. Blake Treinen stated, “We all have J.T.’s back. I think the general public isn’t really given a lot of the truth involved in that. It’s really unfair what’s happened to him. Without going into details, I feel like MLB needs to be supporting him more than they’re smearing him the way they did.”  

Turner was tested before the game, though it took eight innings for them to pull him from the dugout, where he was in contact with many of the players.