The Dodgers Made A Major Error By Accepting Trump’s White House Invite — Twice

The franchise has gone from taking a stand against ICE to bending the knee in submission to this administration’s corruption

By Carron J. Phillips

For the second consecutive year, the Los Angeles Dodgers have happily accepted President Donald Trump’s White House invitation, despite the diverse cultural and ethnic makeup of their clubhouse and the city they represent.

Jackie Robinson has to be tired of rolling over in his grave.

Accepting a White House invitation from Trump has long stopped being a formality or a sign of respect. It’s become a referendum on your politics and morals. And we now know that the Dodgers, an excellent baseball team, are a bunch of cowards.

Photo by Mat Weller on Unsplash

“As was the case one year ago, the Dodgers’ upcoming visits to the White House and Capitol Hill follow the longtime tradition of visits by other World Series champions. We appreciate these tributes in recognition of our back-to-back championships,” the team said in a statement as they return to the nation’s capital this week.

Renowned Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke questioned how a franchise that was built on a diverse and immigrant-heavy fan base would make such a decision not once, but twice. “The president has treated the Dodgers fans with a careless disregard for their basic humanity, and the Dodgers need to let him know this is not OK,” he wrote earlier this month, pleading for the team to reverse their decision.

Even though multiple championship teams have trekked to the White House in Trump’s second term, the spinelessness of the Dodgers’ decisions highlights a different level of culpability.

“I’m not a politician,” said Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts. “I’m doing something that teams have done for decades. That’s where I stand, really. I’m a baseball coach. That’s what I do,” as if the man who is Black and Japanese — one of the few, and maybe only, double-minority skippers in the history of sport — doesn’t understand that his heritage should disallow him being just a “baseball coach.” His presence in professional baseball is a political statement in its own right. There’s also the fact that last year’s trip took place just weeks after Trump’s Department of Defense disrespected Robinson’s legacy by removing (later restoring) a webpage dedicated to his military service. Toward the end of his life, Robinson famously wrote, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.” Four decades later, Trump’s campaign gained even more traction after he called Black athletes who kneeled in peaceful protest during the Star-Spangled Banner “sons of bitches.”

By accepting these invites and posing for photographs with Trump, the leadership of the Los Angeles Dodgers and its roster are spitting in the face of their most iconic player.

Dodgers stars Mookie Betts and Kiké Hernández will not make the trip. The latter is on a minor league rehab assignment, and the former is using the convenient excuse of spending time with his newborn. “If I do [go], people are gonna hate me. If I don’t, people are gonna hate me,” he explained. “So instead of trying to make everyone else happy, I’m gonna think about myself and my family.”

A team whose best player is an immigrant and that plays in one of the most diverse cities and states in this country is headed back to the nation’s capital to kiss the ring as if it didn’t just stand in opposition to this regime’s tactics last summer when they kicked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers off of their property. “This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization,” the team posted on social media. This month, ICE suspended most vehicle stops after officers shot and killed a driver in Maine and a motorist in Houston — until Trump demanded they be reinstated.

This is who the Dodgers choose to align themselves with.

As of this season’s Opening Day rosters, 6.8 percent of the players were Black, and 26.3 percent (249 players) were born outside of the United States, spanning at least 16 different countries and territories. St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker, who won last week’s Home Run Derby at the MLB All-Star Game, said that he desires to be a role model because he wants “more Black kids in baseball.”

But when the franchise that once broke the color barrier is choosing to stand with a figure who likely dreams of a return to segregation, that wish feels like a pipe dream.

Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University. Follow his personal Substack to keep up with more of his work.

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