Hand-me-down turn-down

Raise a glass this morning to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who proved this week that if there's no honor among thieves, there is among their victims. They don't want your stinkin' charity, dammit. And you know what you can do with your pity.

Since it got out a couple of weeks ago that the Houston Astros are a bunch of cheating louts who conned their way to the 2017 World Series title, lots of folks have wondered if Major League Baseball's response was enough. To be sure, commissioner Rob Manfred landed on the Astros like a grand piano, meting out punishments that were unprecedented. But shouldn't he have gone further?

Shouldn't he have stripped the Astros of their title? And given it to the Dodgers?

That was the Los Angeles' City Council's idea, and as with most intersections of politicians and sports, it's as hare-brained as hare-brained gets. The council, see, decided to pass a resolution maintaining that the Dodgers should be awarded the title. It's not worth the paper it's written on, of course, but its political suck-up quotient is high. How better to get pissed-off Angelenos to vote for you next election cycle?

To their credit, the Dodgers themselves ain't playin'.

"We don't want a trophy," third baseman Justin Turner scoffed. "We don't want a fake banner hanging in our stadium. We didn't earn that. We didn't catch that final out to win a championship. We don't want that."

He is, of course, absolutely right. They didn't earn it, even if the Astros didn't either. None of them are happy about the latter, but there's a difference between winning and not losing.

You could say the Dodgers did the latter. But you can't say they did the former.

And so any 2017 World Series banner going up in Chavez Ravine would be constructed from whole cloth. It would be as empty as the wrapper of a Dodger Dog, post-consumption. And, in its own way, it would be as ludicrous as hanging a few other banners:

New Orleans Saints 2019 Wild-Card Champs Because Everyone Knows Kyle Rudolph Pushed Off On That Touchdown In Overtime.

Or:

Indiana Hoosiers 1992 NCAA Champions Because Everyone Knows The Officials Robbed Them In The Second Half Of The National Semifinal Against Those Cheating B******* From Duke.

Or:

Dirt Clod Middle School 2017 City Champs Because That Johnny Kid On The Other Team Traveled, Everybody Saw It, So That Basket Shouldn't Have Counted.

Good for the Dodgers for not playing along with such lunacy, and for saying they'd turn down the hand-me-down trophy. Because only winning is winning.