LeBron James and Cody Bellinger want a championship parade, but don’t expect that to happen (yet)

For the first time in 32 years, the Los Angeles Dodgers are World Series Champions, and also for the first time in 32 years, they won a title in the same year as the Lakers. Understandably, the city of Los Angeles is bursting at the seams with the desire to celebrate, and that includes LeBron James and Cody Bellinger.

Within hours of the Dodgers’ victory, Bellinger and James were on Twitter, practically begging the city of L.A. to let them party in the streets the way champions normally get to in years when there isn’t a global pandemic that has already claimed more than 220,000 lives in the United States alone:

The Dodgers and Lakers have both said that they will not hold a celebration until it is safe to do so, something Lakers governor Jeanie Buss also emphasized during her speech after the team won the title.

The office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has declined to officially comment on if a parade of any kind would be allowed as of yet, but Garcetti himself suggested on Tuesday night that he’s open to safe alternatives from the Lakers and Dodgers.

The reason a traditional parade seems out of the question is because nothing has changed for the better since the last time we covered the possibility of one. The Los Angeles County Health Order section on vehicle-based parades still pretty clearly makes the types of celebrations teams would normally have to ring in a title illegal under the current restrictions:

A Vehicle-Based Parade is an event where, during the entirety of the event, every participant, excluding the Host, Personnel, and security, except as expressly provided herein, remains in a fully enclosed motorized vehicle with the seat belt fastened and where all occupants of each enclosed vehicle are members of a single household. For clarity, an enclosed vehicle does not include a motorcycle, a convertible with the top open, a vehicle with no doors, or a bicycle.

As noted previously, that does not sound anything like a championship parade, and the only thing that has changed since then is that there has been a spike in coronavirus cases in Los Angeles that health officials have partially attributed to people gathering to watch and celebrate the Lakers’ and Dodgers’ respective title runs. That does not sound like the kind of development that would prompt the county to relax any limitations it was placing on celebratory gatherings.

So with apologies to Cody, LeBron and all of the rest of you that want to celebrate: Don’t expect to get an official title celebration any time soon. Eventually it will be safe again, but for now, we all still have to physically distance and do our part to slow the spread of this pandemic as winter approaches.

Please be safe everyone.

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