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The Dodgers' planned White House visit today has some fans disappointed
The Los Angeles Dodgers are in Washington today, where they'll play a series against the Nationals. But ahead of the first fastball, they're taking a different sort of heat from some fans for their planned meeting with President Trump at the White House to mark their 2024 World Series championship.
It's a long-standing tradition for major sports teams to mark triumphant seasons with a POTUS-level visit. But given the Republican administration's slate of actions against immigrants, international students, trans people, civil servants and the concept of diversity — along with Trump's history of anti-immigrant rhetoric — a number of Dodgers fans are expressing disappointment.
They feel that, by accepting the invitation and meeting with Trump, the organization is betraying the values that have made the Dodgers such a beloved, inclusive and successful franchise.
The Dodgers pose for a photo with their 2024 championship rings on March 28, 2025, before a game against Detroit in Los Angeles. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Times sports columnist Dylan Hernández had some feelings about the Dodgers' decision to meet with Trump, writing last week that the organization's leaders are "spineless" hypocrites.
He points to Exhibit A: Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier when he joined the Dodgers in 1947. In just over a week, the Dodgers and all of MLB will celebrate Jackie Robinson Day, celebrating the milestone of sports inclusivity at a time when the Trump White House is dismantling federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs and threatening to pull funding from K-12 schools that have adopted their own.
The Dodgers "will insinuate, if not outright say, they are more than a baseball team," Dylan wrote. "They will portray themselves as leaders of social progress. They will be full of it."
He also spoke to Stan Kasten, Dodgers team president, who argued the visit has "nothing to do with politics" but rather is "about what [players] get as their reward for being world champions." Dylan argued that accepting the invitation was itself political and served to normalize Trump's rhetoric and behavior.
"The Dodgers are embarking on the path of least resistance, and that's not what leaders do," he wrote. "Leaders don't cower in fear of ignorant extremists, no matter how many of them there are. Leaders do what is right and deal with the consequences."
Dylan isn't the only Dodgers fan who feels this way. A Change.org petition launched last week urged the team to cancel the visit. It had nearly 1,800 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.
"This is our plea to the Dodger's Front Office: please ensure that our beloved team is aware of the symbol of unity they represent for us and reconsider this visit," Dodgers fan and petition starter Walker J. Davidson wrote on the webpage.
Davidson, a labor organizer in the cannabis industry, told me last week that the visit contradicts the team's ethos, and he worried that the decision could set the wrong precedent for sports teams when it comes to political action. The reception to his petition, along with recent demonstrations against the Trump agenda in L.A., made him feel confident, he said, that Angelenos would back the Dodgers changing course and "stepping up where others have failed and representing the values of this city."
"I think that if you have those teams and those players also representing American values of inclusivity, that it would speak volumes on an international scale," Davidson added.
After a two-run homer, Shohei Ohtani gets props from Mookie Betts as Freddie Freeman prepares to bat at a game in May 2024. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Times columnist Gustavo Arellano had a different take. He thinks the team should attend and use the national attention they'll receive today to make a statement — by all wearing Jackie Robinson's iconic #42 jersey.
Gustavo argued that giving Dodgers part-owner and LGBTQ+ sports icon Billie Jean King, Venezuela-born infielder Miguel Rojas and Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani a spotlight during the visit would serve as visual counterpoints to Trump's ideology.
"All of those gestures are simple and doable and speak volumes," he wrote. "Sometimes, merely showing up and not hiding who you are is how to fight back best."
This isn't the first time L.A.'s baseball club or its players have stepped up to the plate of political controversy. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts previously balked at a then-theoretical invitation to the White House during Trump's first term.
And Dodgers star Mookie Betts previously skipped a 2019 White House visit with his former Boston Red Sox after winning the 2018 World Series. He's said he'll be there today.
Today's top stories
Santa Cruz Island is seen behind an offshore oil platform in the Santa Barbara Channel. (Marli Miller / UCG / via Getty Images)
Under Trump, a Texas firm pushes to restart Santa Barbara oil drilling. Is it skirting California laws?
- A catastrophic oil spill along Santa Barbara's coastline in 1969 galvanized the modern environmental movement and helped to usher in the landmark California Coastal Act.
- "Now, as the Trump administration seeks to encourage oil and gas production within federal lands and waters," The Times' Grace Toohey reports, "that watershed conservation law is being tested along the same stretch of coastline — and in a way it never has before."
Gov. Gavin Newsom fights to advance his plans for a $20-billion water tunnel in the Sacramento Delta
- Opponents, including Northern California agencies and environmental groups, say building the tunnel would harm the Delta region and the environment.
- "The process has grown tense in recent weeks," my colleague Ian James writes, "as the Newsom administration and water agencies have pushed back against how the board's officials are handling parts of the process, and as opponents have urged the board not to bend to political pressure."
Trump administration cancels dozens of international student visas
- Officials from UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine and Stanford have struggled to assess the full scope of the cancellations.
- A UCSD administrator told Times reporter Jaweed Kaleem that one student was "detained at the border, denied entry and deported to their home country."
- "The actions are part of mass visa cancellations that appear to have unfolded at campuses across the country on Friday and caught school administrators by surprise," Jaweed writes.
More Trump news
What else is going on
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This morning's must reads
Annie Chrys, left, Chrys Chrys, and Mark Yordon at Papa Cristo's in Los Angeles in April 2016. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Papa Cristo's is closing, joining a growing list of struggling longtime restaurants in L.A The Greek eatery, which has been serving since 1948, is "considered the heart of the Byzantine-Latino Quarter," Times food writer Stephanie Breijo reported, and "faces similar issues as other longtime restaurants: rent increases or building sales, higher prices and soon, tariffs."
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For your downtime
Hundreds of hoaryleaf ceanothus are in bloom in Claremont Hills Wilderness Park in Claremont. (Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What's your favorite thing to do during spring in California?
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally ... a great photo
Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they're important to you.
(Courtesy Ed Eisen)
Today's great photo is from Ed Eisen of Temecula: a Pacific Ocean view from Seal Beach.
Ed writes: "This photo was taken from the bridge connecting Seal Beach and Long Beach. It shows many aspects of our ocean environs, from the San Gabriel River and Alamitos Bay entrances in the foreground, to freighters and Catalina in the distance. Look closely and see the snowy egret hoping to snag a treat from the fisherman on the bridge."
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Amy Hubbard, deputy editor, Fast Break
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