usual

I just read Bill Shaikin’s excellent column contrasting the Dodgers’ option to visit the White House with Jackie Robinson’s legendary civil rights stands throughout his life.

As a lifetime Dodger fan who has tried to stay as apolitical as possible, I would be absolutely ashamed of my Dodgers if they were to attend this photo op. I was ashamed last year, too. But nowhere near as much as this year.

Please don’t go.

Eric Monson
Temecula

Just to let Dave Roberts know, there is something bigger than baseball. On the wall in my den are my father’s medals: a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star from when the United States sent my father, Marcelo Villanueva, and others like him, to fight Adolf Hitler.

When our freedoms are being taken away, it’s not OK if you go to the White House and visit the man who is taking them away. Which means my father fought for nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You don’t deserve to wear the same uniform Jackie Robinson did.

Ed Villanueva
Chino Hills

I agree with Bill Shaikin that for the world champion Dodgers to visit the fascist friendly White House would be an implicit contradiction of Jackie Robinson’s legacy. Most of the players probably don’t care, but you wish a manager like Dave Roberts (in L.A.!) were as smart and sensible as Steve Kerr. Apparently he is not.

Sean Mitchell
Dallas

I couldn’t disagree more with Bill Shaikin and his stance that the Dodgers should decline the opportunity to visit the White House. In a world of increasing stresses and dangers, sports is, or should be, a reprieve from the news reported on the front pages. After 9/11, for example, we celebrated the return of baseball as a valued respite from the tragedies we were dealing with. Allow baseball to continue to be this respite, Bill, and stop trying to drag sports into the fray.

Steve Kaye
Oro Valley, Ariz.

Bad look, Dave. It doesn’t help to invoke Jackie Robinson, then in the next breath, “I am (just) a baseball manager.”

Can’t have it both ways. Shaikin is right. Decline.

Joel Soffer
Long Beach

If Roberts feels he needs to go, he should. But the rest of the team should not. Dodger management should support them. Roberts conveniently thinks that going is not a political statement. It is. Roberts’ going supports Trump. The man who raised him and served this country did not do so to see it under the thumb of a corrupt man who attacks all that it has stood for. Today we are all politically identified by the choices we make. There’s no avoiding it.

Eric Nelson
Encinitas

Bill Shaikin nailed it when he talked about and quoted Jackie Robinson and compared him to Dave Roberts’ spineless decision to take the Dodgers to the White House. It’s “only” sports? A team of this renown, in a city terrorized by ICE, in a state directly harmed by Trump? Thank you, Mr. Shaikin, for calling Roberts out.

Ellen Butler
Long Beach

Thank you, Dave Roberts, for making the decision to go to the White House and celebrate our Dodgers’ victory in the World Series. It’s a thing called respect for the office of the president no matter what political party is involved. I don’t care about the L.A. Times sports writers’ politics, so keep your political opinions out of the Sports pages.

Lance Oedekerk
Upland