After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2018, several of their most famous members declined a subsequent visit to Donald Trump’s White House the next May. Manager Alex Cora cited the then-president’s handling of Hurricane Maria in his native Puerto Rico, while superstar Mookie Betts was among several Black and Latino players who elected to skip the White House visit.
Now, Betts has another decision on his hands. The Dodgers said Tuesday they would visit Trump’s White House on April 7, “in keeping with long-standing baseball tradition” of the champions visiting the president. Betts—currently dealing with a debilitating illness that has caused him to lose 25 pounds in recent weeks—is not yet sure if he’ll join.
Manager Dave Roberts said he would go. “I respect the position,” he told the Los Angeles Times. That’s a change of tune from 2019, when he said he would skip a hypothetical visit if the Dodgers won the World Series that year. The previous fall, Trump found time to criticize Roberts’ handling of the Dodgers bullpen in Game 4 of the World Series.
“It is amazing how a manager takes out a pitcher who is loose & dominating through almost 7 innings, Rich Hill of Dodgers, and brings in nervous reliever(s) who get shellacked,” Trump wrote. “4 run lead gone. Managers do it all the time, big mistake!”
The open feuds with the sports world that marked Trump’s first term have been mostly absent from the second. After a false report that the Eagles were skipping the traditional Super Bowl champion visit, the team said it would visit Trump in Washington on April 28. It’s not yet clear if every player plans to go. The last time the team won the Super Bowl in 2018, reports emerged that nearly every player planned to boycott a Trump visit, and the president disinvited them. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is a rare liberal in the conservative billionaire sports owner club. A secret recording of Lurie criticizing Trump was leaked to the New York Times in 2018, when he called the administration “disastrous” and said “Many of us have no interest in supporting President Trump.” (In a sign of things to come, though, Lurie also said that “We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whomever else.”)
Trump has much closer ties with the Kansas City Chiefs, who were blown out by the Eagles in last month’s Super Bowl. He said earlier this week that he would invite the team to Washington after the Eagles visit, to make up for a lost visit when they won the Super Bowl in 2020.
Sports teams did not visit Trump’s White House while the pandemic was raging that year. The Chiefs won two more Super Bowls while Joe Biden was president and visited the White House both times.
The Chiefs told The Athletic that no official invite had been extended yet.
In the interview where he said he would invite the Chiefs, president lavished praise on the wife and mother of quarterback Patrick Mahomes; both women have long supported Trump. “I love those two women—they’re so great,” he said. “And they’re so loyal. They’re so great.” Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker also endorsed Trump’s last presidential campaign.
A Philadelphia member of Congress issued an official statement calling any Chiefs invite “pathetic” and a “full-blown White House participation trophy.”
