Springer says he'll disregard boos raining down from Dodgers fans

George Springer has become a hero in Toronto, where his five-year tenure with the team culminated in his go-ahead home run in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series last week.

- BY JACK HARRIS AND KEVIN BAXTER

ROBERT GAUTHIER Los Angeles Times

GEORGE SPRINGER, shown scoring the Blue Jays' sole run in Game 2, has become L.A.'s top public enemy.

But in Los Angeles, the veteran slugger remains a villain for his role on the 2017 Houston Astros team that beat the Dodgers in that year's World Series — and was later found to have been stealing signs with their trashcan-banging system that year.

Though Springer was among the more apologetic players from that Astros team after the scandal went public in 2019 — “I regret everything,” he said at the time — he has nonetheless been greeted with vociferous boos in every return trip to Dodger Stadium since.

So what was he expecting for this World Series, which returns to Chavez Ravine on Monday?

“I just have to focus on the game,” he said, deflecting from the narrative. “At the end of the day, I have a job to do. I have a game to focus on. That’s where I am on that.”

An experience they wouldn't trade