Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is one fan of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers who believes that the team shouldn’t waste time on the current cheating scandal that may have cost it a World Series title in 2017.
On Monday, the Dodgers rival in that 2017 series, the Houston Astros, were hit with severe penalties, which also resulted in the dismissal of their general manager and manager. The punishment was due to the team going to great lengths to steal pitching signs from other teams.
Rory Carroll of Reuters indicated that Bryant believes that agonizing over the hypotheticals of the situation wouldn’t be productive for the Dodgers.
“‘As a competitive person, the thing that I do is look forward,” Bryant told Reuters at a Major League Soccer event announcing a partnership between MLS and sports drink company BodyArmor, which Bryant has invested $6 million in.
“‘You can’t change things that were, you can’t change the outcome,” he said.
“‘What you can do is control what you can control, which is your performance, how well you hit the ball, how well you pitch the ball, how well you defend.
“I think it’s important to focus on that and try to bring a World Series back to Los Angeles.”
During Bryant’s time in the NBA, the league was forced to deal with a major scandal involving gambling and former referee Tim Donaghy, who later served time in prison for his crime. Bryant witnessed the league and teams that were affected by the scandal with the aftermath resulting positively.
The Dodgers lost that 2017 World Series in seven games, which means that even a small bit dishonesty on the part of the Astros could conceivably have made a difference. Having seen his share of struggles during his NBA career, Bryant knows that looking forward is the best road to take.
