white house visit

Dear Dave Roberts: I was totally disgusted to see you at the Dodgers’ White House ceremony pandering to Trump. As far as I was concerned, you made a complete fool of yourself. I’m sure many Dodgers fans were equally horrified with your behavior.

Susan Stann
Temecula

Today’s visit to the White House was baseball, not politics. It was a boost for MLB, not columnists who try to be political hacks with personal bias. If the hacks or detractors listened to the references it was all about achievement in what the team did to win. The Dodgers are part of the entertainment industry which annually draws maybe a billion fans or more and certainly billions of dollars. The hacks and detractors will not be convinced otherwise but if you line up any 50,000 fans at a game, you will see a positive vote for the privilege of going to the White House. Baseball wins, sports wins, the entertainment industry wins, and America wins. Boo the hacks and the ignorant detractors.

Bill Koury
La Cañada

Dave Roberts justifies his appearance with Donald Trump because it is a “baseball tradition” that should be honored.

I didn’t hear him protesting to uphold other baseball traditions such as banning Black players from baseball, not having designated hitters, or starting with a runner on second base in extra innings.

Traditions come and go. It seems Mr. Roberts traded his moral compass for a trip to the White House lawn.

David Griffin
Westwood

In my dreams Dave Roberts says, “Nope, not gonna go to the White House. If they want to fire me, let ‘em.” Dream on.

Jay James
Pico Rivera

I will suggest the nuclear option. The Dodgers should never again visit the White House. No matter who is president.

Dennis Doherty
West Los Angeles

Dodgers utility player Kiké Hernández confirmed Friday what he posted as a comment on Instagram: he won’t be going to the White House on July 23, when President Trump will honor the team for its 2025 World Series championship.

Instead, Hernández (strained left oblique) is scheduled to be on a minor-league rehab assignment.

“It’s going to be hard to be in two cities at the same time,” Hernández said. “If I was active, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyways.”

Why?

“I’d rather take a day off than do team activities,” he said.

Last year, Hernández expressed his support for immigrants in Los Angeles on social media amid ICE raids authorized by the Trump administration.

The White House visit will be on a day off in the middle of a nine-game East Coast trip.

“I’m sure a lot of guys are going to participate and be there, and this is an individual choice,” Roberts said. “But I do expect a lot of our guys to be there.”

Scheduling conflicts when the Dodgers played the Nationals in Washington on April 3-5 pushed back the trip.

“This took a long time to get both sides together, and, honestly, like I’ve always said, my company line, my personal line is I hope that we get this invitation every year,” Dodgers manager Roberts said. “Because that’s the goal: to win a championship, to get this invitation to the White House. And I’m not a politician, and I’m doing something that teams have done for decades. And so that’s where I stand, really. I’m a baseball coach. That’s what I do.”

Back in 2019, Roberts suggested that he might not accept an invitation to the White House with Trump in office. But he did attend last year when the Dodgers celebrated their 2024 title.

Roberts said the Dodgers found out earlier this week that the White House visit had been scheduled.

“There was a lot of unknown,” Roberts said. “It’s an off day, and then how could we work this out logistically?”

That set off “a lot of phone calls, texts, and communication internally.”

Hernández’s injury rehab has moved along more quickly than Roberts initially expected. He landed on the injury list in late May after playing in just two games following offseason surgery on his left elbow.

“He looks normal,” Roberts said last weekend. “I’m not saying miraculous, but I’m really in disbelief how well he responded, given the injury.”