The Los Angeles Dodgers are set to celebrate their 2024 World Series championship at the White House on Monday, and it appears that most, if not all of the team will be in attendance.
The team will make the trip before taking on the Washington Nationals on Monday, a move that team president Stan Kasten told the Los Angeles Times was a decision by the players.
“This was something we discussed with all the players, all of whom wanted to go,” Kasten said, via Times columnist Dylan Hernández. “Remember, everyone in here grew up wanting to be a world champion and all the things that come with it, and it comes with a champagne toast, silliness in the locker room, a parade, rings, an invitation to the White House. It’s what they all come to associate with being world champions.
“Everyone wanted to go, and so we did,” he added.
“Everyone” includes Dodgers star Mookie Betts, who sat out the trip to the White House in 2019 after winning the 2018 World Series with the Boston Red Sox, during Trump’s first term.
“I made it about me [in 2019],” Betts said on Friday, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. “I’m not the same person I was then.”
Manager Dave Roberts, who said he wouldn’t have gone had the Dodgers won the World Series during Trump’s first term, confirmed he’d also be in attendance.
The visit comes as the White House is facing a rapid deterioration of the stock market after last week’s “Liberation Day,” where Trump announced sweeping, blanket tariffs against dozens of international trade partners.
The visit also comes after the franchise’s most storied player, Jackie Robinson, was scrutinized by the Trump administration. A push to remove all mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion led to a webpage celebrating Robinson’s military history being wiped from a Department of Defense site.
The page has since been restored, but the Dodgers’ White House visit will come just eight days before Major League Baseball celebrates the crucial figure in American historical with “Jackie Robinson Day” on April 15 — as it has since 2004.
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