L.A. Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner was pulled from Game 6 of the World Series after testing positive for the coronavirus, but later returned to the field after his team’s win, hugging players and at one point removing his mask for photos.
ESPN reports: “The veteran infielder was not immediately with his teammates as they celebrated the franchise’s first World Series title since 1988. But the 35-year-old did return to the field with his wife about an hour after the game and took photos with the World Series trophy. He got a hug from longtime teammate Clayton Kershaw and sat front and center next to manager Dave Roberts for a team photo, occasionally lowering a mask he otherwise wore throughout the celebration. Sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan that Turner had been asked to isolate after the positive test but that no one stopped him from going on the field to celebrate.”
USA Today writes: “A handful of teammates and club president Andrew Friedman offered myriad and largely lame explanations for a jarring visual —Turner, sometimes masked, sometimes not, mugging for the team photo and hugging teammates. Friedman leaned on the fact that Turner was largely surrounded by teammates with whom he was quarantining or had been in contact with. The team will have multiple rounds of testing before leaving Texas. Yet, an on-field post-championship celebration is not a bubble. There are photographers and camera crews and league officials, not all of them locked down with the Dodgers. The threat of infecting a teammate or teammate’s family member was real. What’s more, there are millions of people watching on television, all having just learned of Turner’s positive test, only to see him mingling and mugging. For the millions who have been locked down, distanced, unable to access testing or see loved ones, it was a galling image.”
