In 2019, Mookie Betts, then an outfield for the Boston Red Sox, rejected eight of his teammates and Red Sox manager Alex Cora to visit the White House. The Red Sox were the World Series Champs and the invitation was a standard photo surgery protocol of the President.
Beds, The most valuable player in the American League This year he did not say why he had rejected Trump's invitation, but all Red Sox who stayed away were black or Latin Americans, and several players born abroad found that Trump's immigrants had shaped their decisions.
Betts may soon have to decide again whether he should visit Trump in the White House when and when an invitation is extended to his current team, the 2024 World Series Champion Dodgers. (Betts and the championship team dived in 2021 when President Biden was the host of the White House.)
All presidents take photos with athletes. In 1910, President Taffeta began to take first place on the opening day. President Reagan started the ritual of presidents who organized Big-Game winners in the White House. During Trump's first presidency, tradition was particularly controversial.
Trump naturally has his Friends under sports figuresIncluding Mike Tyson, Tom Brady, Herschel Walker, Curt Schilling, Brett Favre, Tiger Woods, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Linda McMahon, the co-founder of the world wrestling entertainment and Trump Minister of Education.
But other athletes have made their objections to the president of the president.
In spring 2016, while Trump's first campaign, Dodgers First Baseman Adrian Gonzalez, a Mexican American, refused to stay with the team in a hotel in Trump in Trump in Chicago. When asked whether his decision is related to Trump's attacks on immigrants, Gonzalez said: “You can draw your own conclusions. You are probably right. “
This autumn, after the media had revealed that Trump had boasted that he could “pack” the genitals of women, he dismissed his comment as a “changing room talk”. Pitcher of the Washington National Sean Doolittle was one of many athletes Who condemned Trump. He tweeted: “As a athlete, I was my whole adult life in changing rooms and that is not a changing room talk.”
Until then, Trump had also involved in San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who refused to stand during the national anthem to protest against US racism. “Maybe he should find a country that works better for him” Trump told an interviewer in August 2016.
And after he was chosen, Trump asked the NFL owners to leave every player who kneel during the “star banner” in protest. “Get this son of a bitch from the field now. Out of! He fired. He fired! ” Trump roared At a rally in Alabama in September 2017.
The next weekend, more than 200 NFL players kneel in front of Trump. The NFL commissioner Roger Goodell defended the demonstrators, but until then Kaepernick had been effective.
The basketball was also submitted with the president. After the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship in 2017, the White House and the team worked for a meeting time when Steph Curry said he would not take part and the president reciprocated and tweeted that the team was switched off.
Similarly the same happens in 2018, If only a handful of members From the NFL Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles, committed to participating in an event of the White House with Trump. The president canceled it. (The 2025 Champion Eagles I officially accepted an invitation from the White House this year.)
In 2019 it was a team of women who avoided the ritual. Trump card Criticized football, great Megan RapinoeStar of the US women national team because he had not sung the national anthem and after the team won the Women's World Cup, their members also refused to meet Trump.
Of course, neither fans nor athletes share all similar political views. President Trump used Sport as a political instrument and attended the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 racing days later, where he and his entourage made a round around the track.
It may be preferable that sport and politics have not mixed up at all, but the two have been closely together for decades.
Team owners donate a lot of money to chosen civil servants, sometimes hoping for favors, including state subsidies for new stadiums. Over the years, owners of the Dodgers, Clipper, Lakers, Angel, Sparks, La Kings and the Galaxy have contributed Hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaigns and lobbying.
And the fans greet veterans at games, they cheer when the stealth bomber flies over the Rose Bowl, and in contrast to most sporting events worldwide, the national anthem await you before the game begins.
So what should we expect that the hometown world champion will do in 2025? The logical time for a Trump-Dodger approach would be in almost a month if Los Angeles becomes Washington on the way to Washington from April 7th.
Don't bet on it.
Betts has remained open on social issues. In 2020, the year in which he joined the Dodgers, beds took a knee during the national anthem to protest in American racism and against the murder of George Floyd by a police officer from Minnesota. “I'm more than one athlete,” he said. In August of this year he led the team to organize a game to protest against the police who protested another black man, this time in Wisconsin. Manager Dave Roberts joined the protest.
Two well-known athletes with ownership of the Dodgers-Hemal Lakers star Magic Johnson and women Tennis Great Billie Jean King-Gaden Trump and criticized served as co-chair For an athlete for Harri's efforts during the 2024 presidential campaign. King said that the country was the country during Trump's first term “Go backwards” in the fight for equality.
All in all, it is difficult to imagine that the Dodgers at the moment agree with a solemn photo surgery with the president. Los Angeles is not only Dodger Blue, but democratically blue. The President La County lost with 33 percentage points. In his feuds with the Californian governor Gavin Newsom Trump Has threatened to hold back fire department disaster funds without concessions. He never seems to miss an opportunity to wipe in the Golden State.
The world champion Dodgers should present the president, not next to the president. If an overture comes from the White House, you can send a friendly note: thank you, but no.
Kelly Candaele produced the documentary “A League Own” about the All-Aternican Girls Professional Baseball League. Peter Dreier is a professor of politics at Occidental College and Co.– –Author of “Baseball Rebels: The players, people and social movements who shook the game and have changed America.”