The Los Angeles Dodgers are set to visit the White House on Monday, continuing a decades-old tradition for the reigning World Series champions that has been fraught with political tension while President Trump has occupied the Oval Office.
In Mr. Trump’s first term, the customary visit was boycotted by some Black and Latino players. And before the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020, their manager, Dave Roberts, had suggested he would skip any visits to the Trump White House. But Joseph R. Biden Jr. defeated Mr. Trump that fall and hosted the team the following year.
The franchise won the championship again in 2024, and this year, it does not appear that any Dodgers are planning to skip the visit. Their star shortstop, Mookie Betts, who refused to go to the White House in 2019 after winning a title with the Boston Red Sox, said he would attend this time.
The Dodgers’ visit comes after the Trump administration was heavily criticized for removing an article on a Pentagon website celebrating Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier and is one of the franchise’s most celebrated players.
The Defense Department, which has worked to purge any references to diversity, equity and inclusion on its sites, restored the page after backlash. Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., said that he was “flabbergasted” by the removal and that it would be “atrocious” to reduce Robinson’s career to a “D.E.I. story.”
Robinson endured intense verbal abuse when he integrated Major League Baseball during the 1947 season. (At the time, the Dodgers played in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn; they moved to Los Angeles in 1958.)
Few if any players are held in higher regard by the sport: Robinson’s number, 42, was retired leaguewide in 1997. The sport celebrates Jackie Robinson Day each year on April 15, when every player wears a No. 42 uniform.
Mr. Betts said last week that he regretted boycotting the White House visit with the Red Sox, but that being “Black in America in a situation like this, it’s a tough spot to be in,” according to The Athletic.
Mr. Roberts, one of two Black managers in the M.L.B., said that the Dodgers had collectively decided to go to the White House. The trip is “not a political thing,” Mr. Roberts said, and is simply intended to celebrate the team’s World Series title.
“We have a lot of different people that are part of this organization,” Mr. Roberts told reporters last week. “Different backgrounds. Different cultures, race, gender. And so everyone has a different story.”
“We are all going as an organization,” he said, adding: “We’re all aligned.”
