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The Dodgers return to the White House on July 23rd. It is time to make a stand.
The following essay is a True Blue LA Special Comment, an op-ed containing the analysis and opinions of Associate Editor Michael Elizondo. Said views are his own and do not represent the views of True Blue LA, SB Nation, Vox Media, or any other subsidiary.
Seeing Game 7 at Rogers Centre was one of the highlights of my life. After basking in the championship afterglow and finishing mandated copy on Yoshinobu Yamamoto winning MVP, I had a single, disquieting thought before drifting off to sleep for a quick nap before my return flight to San Francisco, which sat on the tarmac for three hours.
“Oh God, I’m going to have to revisit “The Useful Idiots,” aren’t I…”
When the Dodgers were victorious in arguably the greatest single game in history, the vibes were immaculate, unless you were a Toronto Blue Jays fan. As I have gotten older, a hard truth has emerged. The Dodgers are sometimes a hard organization to love. Children and dogs can love things unconditionally with their whole heart. Adults gain the wisdom to know better.
For every win, like fulfilling the pledge to immigrants affected by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) or Pride Night; there’s a baffling own-goal, be it the Gondola, concrete falling on patrons at Dodger Stadium, how it treats its tour guides, ongoing issues with stadium security, a $70 Ohtani souvenir soda cup, or the subject we must reluctantly address today.
This topic is one that one might try to shunt into the lens of politics. This story is not about politics; we are not debating environmental, infrastructure, or tax policy. We are not talking about reproductive health, or jobs, or any of the big issues for which we use sport as a balm. Today, at this story’s core, we discuss simple morality.
Many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line, we’ve got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go.*
This story has clear, bright lines between right and wrong. If you want to pretend otherwise, I believe it is beyond my or this website’s ability to help you. I am proudly intolerant of fascism or those supporting fascism.
Like a shoe that finally dropped, the Dodgers confirmed on July 9th what they had announced six months earlier. Edward Lewis of the California Post confirmed the story that the team was returning to Washington, D.C., on the July 23rd off day after the Philadelphia series to visit President Donald Trump and celebrate the 2025 World Series title.
To understand the self-inflicted controversy, we return to the beginning of the year to refresh our collective memory.
In January, Dave Roberts said the quiet part out loud
On January 31, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times asked Dave Roberts at Dodgers FanFest whether the team would accept a likely forthcoming invitation to attend the White House in 2026. Roberts could have said nothing, made no comment, or even deferred Shaikin’s question.
To Roberts’ marginal credit, he ripped the bandage off and said the quiet part out loud when he said the following:
“For me, I stand by: I’m a baseball manager,” Roberts told [Shaikin on January 31st] at the Dodgers’ fan festival. “That’s my job.”“I was raised — by a man who served our country for 30 years — to respect the highest office in our country. For me, it doesn’t matter who is in the office, I’m going to go to the White House. I’ve never tried to be political. ... For me, I am going to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”
Based on previous statements, one would have expected Stan “You can’t separate me from the players” Kasten to agree, but he somehow had enough sense to read the room and told Shaikin, “I don’t have any news for you on that [subject].”
Mr. Shaikin’s article continued, arguing that Jackie Robinson’s team should not dignify this administration by posing for another photo op. I generally agree, but I would be remiss not to point out that this ship has already sailed and hit the figurative iceberg last year.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and frankly, those thousand words are not very good. For anyone claiming that so-and-so has virtue and so-and-so does not, you need only look at last year’s photos.
As if Roberts’ declaration was not bad enough, Jack Harris of the California Post reported on February 4 that the White House had confirmed the Dodgers’ visit, but the date was to be determined.
On February 6, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times largely repeated the unsuccessful entreaty that his former colleague, Dylan Hernandez, made last year: the organization that prides itself on being the team of Jackie Robinson should say thanks, but no thanks.
In the wake of Thursday’s White House confirmation that the Dodgers will be making the traditional champions visit there this spring, somebody needs to send a clear message to President Trump.“No.”……No, after basking in the adulation of 4 million diverse neighbors every summer, the players will not turn their backs on these people while the government continues to round them up despite no criminal history.This isn’t about asking pro athletes to be politicians. This is about asking them to be people.
On July 9, Plaschke repeated the argument, this time focusing on Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center.
Madera, a die-hard Dodgers fan, hasn’t attended a game since last summer’s ICE raids because he’s lost faith in the Dodgers’ connection with the Los Angeles community.He says this latest news of a second White House visit only frays that connection further.“It’s very disappointing to hear that our team is going to shake the hand of a person who has sent so much hate and terror into our community,” he said. “Thousands of families in our city live in fear ... we can’t stand for what’s going on.”Madera said the Dodgers need to remember who they are.“The Dodgers bring so much joy to our community, but a large part of their fan base is the immigrant community, and they need to stand with us,” he said. “It’s very disappointing that they’re not, and we need to hold them accountable.”
Needless to say, if appealing to the better angels of the Dodgers’ nature did not work in 2025, one would imagine even less success from doing so in 2026. After all, the only players who did not attend were those injured at the time, such as Freddie Freeman, who was supposed to give an introductory speech delivered by now-retired Clayton Kershaw, and Brusdar Graterol.
Dave Roberts: 2019 to 2025 to Now
If one has not been paying attention, Dave Roberts’ statements about going to the White House have changed since the summer of 2019. Before the 2019 All-Star Break, Roberts was asked by Andy McCullough, then of the Los Angeles Times, on the eve of the All-Star Game, whether the Dodgers would visit the White House if the team hypothetically prevailed in the 2019 World Series.
The question was not unreasonable, as the 2019 team had the league’s best record and was coming off back-to-back unsuccessful World Series appearances. Roberts indicated that “it was unlikely” that he would go to the White House in this hypothetical situation.
“We have to win it first. But one trip to D.C., playing the Nationals, is plenty for me.”
At the time, Roberts’ hypothetical decision was framed as one of principle. Hindsight is not kind to these interactions. In 2018, then-President Trump criticized Roberts by name for his decision-making, posting on Twitter after Rich Hill was removed from Game 4 of the 2018 World Series.
At the time, Roberts deflected the issue, but with McCullogh, he elaborated on the kerfuffle further:
“There’s no benefit to responding to an irresponsible tweet irresponsibly, or ignorantly. So, I guess it’s one of those ‘consider the source’-type things. Which is sad, because that’s the leader of our country. That I have to say, ‘Consider the source.’ It’s sad.”
Needless to say, Dave Roberts’ decisions in the 2019 NLDS against the Washington Nationals made all of the above hypotheticals moot. Never forget in a world with no three-batter minimum and Adam Kolarek solely being used to get Juan Soto, the following happened:
One would wonder whether the delay from the initial announcement to now would have colored Roberts’ view at all. Roberts answered that question himself when speaking to the media on July 10:
“This [visit] 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, because that’s the goal – to win a championship, to get this invitation to the White House. I’m not a politician, and I’m doing something that teams have done for decades. So that’s where I stand, really. I’m a baseball coach. That’s what I do.”[Emphasis added.]
From “unlikely” in 2019 to “it’s not political” in 2025 to “I’m not a politician…I’m a baseball coach” now. The principle Roberts mentions now would seem to apply in 2019, but if one is posing as someone who benefits from personal pique, one wonders what the truth is now or then. To paraphrase a great man, in the end, what I believe does not matter; what matters is what he does.*
Lie down with dogs, get fleas…
All bets were off once the Dodgers publicly bent the knee to a burgeoning autocrat by folding faster than Superman on laundry day last year. My rule of thumb is that once someone proves themselves an objective coward, it is folly to expect otherwise.
Once you lie down with dogs, you likely have fleas until you go through the effort of washing them off. The Dodgers organization made a dog’s breakfast of it last April. Ceding the moral high ground makes the exercise of pretending to be Jackie Robinson’s organization shallow. As I wrote last year:
At some point, silence becomes complicity. Saying that you are not being political becomes complicity. If the act we discuss is evil enough, there is no excuse for silence. Pretending that everything is normal in times like these is a political choice.There are times when the Dodgers have completely muffed it when it comes to doing the right thing. Glenn Burke was one case. Phil Ortega was another. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, the team desperately wanted a Mexican star to identify with the fanbase. They latched onto Ortega, who was Native American, not Mexican. Buzzie Bavasi once was quoted as saying he “could have scalped” Ortega when telling Vin Scully on the radio that he was not Mexican.
The Dodgers did their level best to pretend nothing was wrong on Jackie Robinson Day last year, and even the team and the league were trying to whitewash Robinson’s legacy. Before the game, NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did not hold back, as reported by Bill Plunkett of The Orange County Register:
[The Trump administration’s efforts to purge DEI programs (diversity, equality and inclusion)] makes Tuesday’s recognition of Robinson throughout baseball even more important, Abdul-Jabbar said.“I think it’s absolutely important,” he said. “Trump wants to get rid of DEI. And I think it’s just a ruse to discriminate. So I’m glad that we do things like this, to let everybody in the country know what’s important. They also tried to get rid of (abolitionist and social activist) Harriet Tubman. But that didn’t work. There was just uproar about that. But you have to take that into consideration when we think about what’s going on today.”
At the time, Roberts attempted to defend the Dodgers’ 2025 White House visit by arguing the two events were separate, which rings quite hollow given the history. Once again, from Mr. Plunkett:
“This is not a one-day situation,” Roberts said. “It’s Jackie Robinson’s day for breaking the color barrier, but this is like an everyday sort of mindset, appreciation.”…“I don’t personally view it as talking out of both sides of our mouth,” he said. “I understand how people feel that way. But I do think that supporting our country, staying unified, aligned, is what I believe in personally. I just believe in doing things the right way and I think people are going to have their opinions on what we did last week but I do know that we all stand unified and we all have different stories and backgrounds and economic, political beliefs. But I was proud that we all stood together.”
In fact, the only person connected to the Dodgers to even try to acknowledge Robinson’s actual legacy was the people’s champion, announcer Stephen Nelson.
For what it’s worth, Nelson and Jessica Mendoza did something novel in this fact-less, truth-less age; they calmly discussed the history of what happened and why Robinson was important. Thankfully, the schedule conflict this year made such awkwardness for 2026’s Jackie Robinson Day impossible.
Deferred no longer
Some likely forgot about the agreed-upon trip. No one ever canceled it or said that it was not going to happen. On the last off day before the All-Star Break, the visit was confirmed. Dave Roberts added that “I’m sure a lot of guys are going to participate and be there,” Roberts said. “This is an individual choice, but I do expect a lot of our guys to be there.”
The team made the following statement after the announcement of the confirmation:
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.
Members of the team apparently have an out if they wish, and there is the fierce urgency of now to do the right thing. So far, only Kiké Hernández and Mookie Betts have announced that they will pass on the festivities. Hernández has been nursing an injured oblique and posted on Instagram that he wouldn’t be going on the day of the announcement before deleting his post. Hernández was the only active Dodger to speak up last year, on the eve of ICE’s attempt to use Dodger Stadium as a staging ground for raids in Los Angeles.
On July 11, Betts announced to Jack Harris of the California Post that he wasn’t going to go, and was straightforward about his desire to spend time with his family, rather than make a political statement:
“I’m not trying to make this a whole big deal. We just had a baby. You don’t get many days off. They’re coming [on the road trip]. And just want to hang out with the fam. That’s really kind of it. But people are gonna make it a whole bunch of other stuff….…If I do [go], people are gonna hate me. If I don’t, people are gonna hate me,” he said. “So instead of trying to make everyone else happy, I’m gonna think about myself and my family.”Betts reiterated that his thinking was not politically motivated, but acknowledged “people are gonna try to drag me into politics, just because I am who I am.”“That’s just the cards I’m dealt,” he said. “So it is what it is.”
Valid criticism is not hate, but fair enough.
Last year, the organization’s actions spoke volumes, even though the general tone of my plea was for everyone not to go. At first glance, it appears that this year the best anyone can hope for is a piecemeal response.
It’s a frustrating situation because of the team’s diverse ethnicities. One of many diverse backgrounds, a team was forged with the ultimate goal of defending the title. It may be hokey to remember E pluribus unum — out of many, one. If the players wanted to take a stand for World Series hero and likely-future manager Miguel Rojas, considering what this administration has done to his homeland of Venezuela, now would be a good time.
The thing about authoritarian regimes? Shocker, they and their lickspittles don’t like the word “no.” Joe Concha and his fellow panelists ripped Hernández for his opting out of the trip, dismissing his contributions to last year’s championship run, unfavorably comparing him to Freddie Freeman.
First, the stupidity, ignorance, and incompetence of this administration and its corporate defenders are their defining features. For anyone not indoctrinated or trapped in a well since late October 2025, if Hernández had not been playing left field in Game 6, there is a good chance there would have been no Game 7 last year.
Never mind that Hernández has played in every Dodgers’ World Series appearance since 1988, which is five series now and counting.
Second, Mr. Concha makes an unintentional point. Hernández may not move the needle of public opinion outside of the Dodgers community, but Shohei Ohtani would. Last year, I largely gave the Japanese contingent of Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki a pass for going along with the tide. But the trio of Japanese nationals has spent a year playing and/or living in Los Angeles.
Even with a language barrier, they have eyes.
Ohtani is a fan of the hit anime and manga One Piece. To put this visit in One Piece terms, imagine if Monkey D. Luffy buddied up with Saint Charlos of the Celestial Dragons at their first meeting, which is the total opposite of what actually happened. This moment served as the turning point in the ongoing story, transforming a tale of goofy goobers adventuring into one with actual consequences.
I understand that Ohtani is the goofiest goober who ever goobered with thoughts of his dog, his wife, his children, and of being the undisputed GOAT of baseball, running in a loop in his head. Presumably, though, someone in his circle (be it his wife, his agent, translator Will Ireton, Yamamoto) has enough sense to say, “There is literally anything else we could be doing right now, so we are going to rest up for the stretch run.” This essay is an entreaty to that slim hope.
Just in the past week, President Trump blamed “the Islamic Republic of Japan” for attacks in the Middle East in an illegal war he started, causing justifiable anger and exasperation back in Japan. If the three of you wanted to stand up for your countrymen, now would be an excellent time, given your pride in playing for Samurai Japan.
Why Honor Matters
I will concede a point that Roberts made: yes, under normal circumstances, a White House visit, by definition, isn’t controversial. These are not normal times. To say otherwise is to admit having staggering ignorance or almost clinical self-delusion.
Based on everything above, if kowtowing to this administration was unforgivable in 2025, it is even more so now. I could easily triple the length of this essay with the unforgivable sins of this administration just in the past year, the past six months (because 95% of this feature was written four months ago before the illegal Iran war, or the Freedom250 debacle, or corruption relating to the Kennedy Center or the Reflecting Pool, the attempts to ignore the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, to firing all the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, among other things) on both domestic and international matters, including the effective, ongoing occupation of Venezuela.
For starters, there is the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which funded an extra $70 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), essentially creating a paramilitary goon squad. In 2026, ICE has a budget of about $85 billion, and, per National Public Radio, $45 billion of that is allocated to expand its immigration detention system. Based on these figures, ICE has a larger budget than that of all but the militaries of five countries on Earth.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last June that the agency could hold up to 100,000 people in custody daily. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons currently holds over 153,000 inmates. So far in 2026, ICE has spent about half a billion dollars for warehouses in five states to serve as de facto concentration camps that went online in April, in the largest creation of a prison camp since the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.
Spend a bunch of money on a goon squad and de facto concentration camps, and surprise, you get a goon squad and de facto concentration camps.
In this environment, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the abduction of five-year-old Liam Ramos are entirely foreseeable and predictable overreaches of government power, resulting in the ongoing abductions in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and elsewhere. Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva of The Guardian on January 28, 2026, aptly summarized the situation:
In 2025, [the Department of Homeland Security] DHS reported a “historic” surge in deportations, gleefully noting that it had removed over 622,000 people from the US. During the same period, 32 people died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, which marked the deadliest year for the agency in its over two decades of operation. In January 2026 alone, at least nine people have been killed directly by DHS or died in their custody. Additionally, an October 2025 investigation revealed a pattern of sexual assault and forced labour targeting transgender and queer detainees at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.[emphasis added.]
It’s only gotten worse since I first researched this story. In response, the Dodgers gave $1.1 million to groups in Los Angeles in response to all of the above horror.
And still, they go. It was important enough to divest from ICE and pay to help those in need, but it’s still important enough to sidle up to those holding ICE’s strings and causing the harm?
Never mind, this administration is far weaker and needs the positive PR far more than the Dodgers need a pat on the head. However, the above conduct is not apparently disqualifying for the Dodgers to embrace by visiting the White House. Hence, the Useful Idiots Revisited.
Again, it’s not a question of politics. Establishment opposition members like Charles Schumer of New York and Adam Schiff of California are more likely to write a concerned social media post rather than use the limited parliamentary tools at their disposal to try and slow, much less stop, this horrible train or fight on anyone’s behalf.
Do I expect another sad photo-op with Senator Schiff and Dave Roberts in 2026, as if that act makes what the Dodgers did okay? I suppose, but it doesn’t really matter.
No one is coming to save us, so let’s save ourselves. If the organization is going to handwave its failings away, there is no reason for anyone to willingly accept it.
And as this essay was originally being prepared, the administration has stooped even lower with its appeals to racism by stifling dissent by picking fights with American Olympic athletes, having federal agents confront citizen critics, and the detention of journalists in the United States.
Purely on a sports level, every team that embraces this administration faceplants in almost comedically predictable fashion. The New York Knicks invited President Trump to Game 3 of the NBA Finals, snarling traffic for hours. The Knicks lost their only game of the series. President Trump bragged about intervening with FIFA on the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team’s behalf, torching the goodwill generated by the tournament almost instantaneously, and of course, the team got eliminated in almost comedic fashion in short order.
To paraphrase a great man, “Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying.”*
With all the above as a prelude, Dave Roberts’ declaration is wrong. Whether he and other players who parrot this line are wrong out of ignorance or complicity is an open question for their respective consciences.
Respecting the highest office in our country only makes sense if the person in that office is honorable under normal circumstances. It does matter who is in the nation’s highest office when all norms that enable the best ideals of this country are being shredded in the face of rapidly encroaching authoritarianism.
When law-abiding citizens are being abducted or shot in the street with impunity, there is no law. There is no point in adhering to norms when doing so allows fascism to further entrench itself. To paraphrase one of cinema’s coldest lines, if the norm led you to this moment, what use was the norm?
If the Dodgers want to continue betraying the ideals Dave Roberts professes to adhere to in another act of grievous self-sabotage, that’s on them and everyone involved. The people of Los Angeles and those who love this team do not have to take this, in both figurative and literal terms, lying down.
Life is not a spectator sport*
I dreaded this story for a single personal reason, apart from any potential threat to my health or livelihood. Last year’s betrayal by the Dodgers should have been a personal dealbreaker.
If we are being honest, if you were sickened by what happened because of last year’s visit, got angry, and then kept watching as if nothing had happened, you are not alone, because that behavior is what the organization was counting on. However, I compromised, held my nose, explained it away, and carried on.
The Dodgers collectively bent their knee to an incompetent, racist, authoritarian, and that failure did not prevent me from following the Dodgers around three different countries on two different continents or visiting Dodger Stadium in 2025.
As if on cue, the Dodgers dropped the carrot of 24 bobblehead nights as if that act would serve as a balm that somehow excuses another monstrous lapse in behavior. I love Dodger away bobbleheads as much as the next person, especially as someone who saw Game 7 of the 2025 World Series in person, but no more half measures.
There are things one should not compromise, and in the name of mild cowardice and expediency in 2025, I did. To be fair, most people buckle under a true test of their principles.
I can’t speak for you, nor do I have the right.
But me personally, yes, I was wrong.
I apologize. I am ashamed of my complicity. That failure is something I have had to live with, grapple with, and try to do better. However, to paraphrase a great man, there’s no American in this country who’s free until every one of us is free.*
The thing with mistakes, though, is that if one avoids the sunk cost fallacy, the best time to fix a mistake is well before it happens; the second-best time to fix it and make amends is right now.
To address the elephant in the room, I do not live in Los Angeles, and I have not for 25 years. I am an out-of-towner whose life took him in a different direction than originally intended. While I may be an outsider, I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by making this appeal. I proceed because it’s the right thing to do.
No one is coming to save us, so let’s save ourselves.
If last year’s appeal to decency did not work, it is time to hit the Dodgers in the pocketbook, where they actually feel it, and keep at it until we get through. If the Dodgers persist in this insult, I call on all Dodgers fans to boycott Dodger Stadium and close your wallets. The dent in the pocketbook is the only way for fans to make their voices heard.
If nothing else, this team is beholden to optics and is quite proud of having brought in over four million fans for the first time last year. If Dodger Stadium is even slightly emptier, that result will show, and the team will likely not repeat its record attendance marks.
I am realistic about this plan’s probability of success. I pleaded with the fans not to enrich Sacramento Athletics owner John Fisher when the Dodgers visited Sacramento earlier this month. And as if on cue, record crowds showed up at Sutter Health Park. The magnetism of Shohei Ohtani was just too great to ignore in Sacramento; c’est la vie.
However, I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.*
I learned a long time ago, you do the right thing because it’s right; not for reward, or glory, but for the continued ability to look yourself in the mirror and know that last inch of yourself. To fight for the core value that is you, which is for you and you alone.
If you, dear reader, feel as I feel, then I encourage you to stay home or, barring that, join me on the road. Personally, being a road fan is infinitely more enjoyable than just visiting Dodger Stadium, but each to their own. After all, showing up elsewhere feeds other teams’ coffers.
There is one more thing you can do to show your protest, and that act, for me, serves as my penance for my failure last year. Various petitions are popping up urging the Dodgers not to go to the White House. While well-meaning, the team will likely continue to ignore these efforts.
During the past year, I have learned that organizations tend to overreact to phone calls and physical letters.
To conclude this essay, I have provided a letter that one can print and mail to the attention of Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer Lon Rosen and Vice President, Communications, Jon Weisman, at Dodger Stadium, 1000 Vin Scully Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Or one can call 1-866-DODGERS, X9, and recite the letter below. It should fit on a single page, with space on the other side for people to add their own anecdotes if needed.
Now is the time to cause some good trouble.
If you are with me, let us share this essay far and wide, get these letters in the mail, get the word out, and turn up the heat. However, if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government and the Dodgers’ complicity in this matter remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow this essay and the following measures to pass unmarked.
An open letter to the Dodgers
Dear Mr. Rosen, Mr. Weisman, or whomever it may concern:
My name is __________________, and I have been a fan of the Dodgers for many years now. Some of my most important memories are linked to this team, Dodger Stadium, and this city. Being a Dodgers fan is one of the most important things in my life.
On January 31, Manager Dave Roberts announced that he and the Dodgers would attend the White House to meet with President Trump again to celebrate the Dodgers’ repeat as World Champions. What Mr. Roberts and the players who join him do on their own time is up to them and their respective consciences.
It was bad enough, and frankly unforgivable enough, when the Dodgers visited President Trump in 2025, and then turned around to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day as if the organization had not just set its own historic reputation on fire.
Still, I watched games, I spent money, I supported this team.
It should have been a dealbreaker then, but it’s going to be a dealbreaker now.
While we were spared the indignity of another White House visit on Jackie Robinson Day due to scheduling conflicts, this organization has unfortunately decided to set all the goodwill it has earned on fire again, while the team is on the East Coast to start the second half.
This letter strongly urges the Dodgers’ organization as a whole not to dignify this administration. Under normal times, no one would care, and frankly, it would not and should not matter who the president is. A White House visit would be a moment to add to the organization’s scrapbook.
These are not normal times. You denied United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement entry to Dodger Stadium to use the stadium’s parking lots for raids last year. Clearly, you had a reason.
I am mindful that some on the team will happily clap like seals in support of the administration. They must answer to their conscience and their higher power, as applicable.
This administration, this president, is leading the country down the road to fascism. This lawless pack of thieves is doing its best to raid the treasury, abduct and kill our friends and neighbors (both of color and otherwise) at will, while terrorizing the citizens of Los Angeles and elsewhere, and while bringing out the worst in everyone.
The Dodgers as a whole, expressing public support for their fans while serving as useful idiots to this man, is a contradiction I can no longer stomach.
If the Dodgers go to this White House in 2026, I will be gravely disappointed and will be forced to cease financially supporting this team. I will encourage others to stay away as well.
Dodger Stadium is considered one of the jewels of MLB. But my self-respect and doing the right thing are infinitely more valuable than whatever I would spend or do at Dodger Stadium.
If this team cannot see that simple, inalienable truth, then you are truly lost.
To quote Jackie Robinson, whom this team has seemingly forgotten: the most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity. There is no American in this country who’s free until every one of us is free.* If this organization wants to keep enabling those who would hurt, I will take my business elsewhere until this team makes amends to the community that it is both hurting and helping.
The time for contradictions is over. It’s time to make a stand. This organization proclaims itself as an organization for good and celebrates its history and place in the community — it’s time to act like it.
[Author’s Note: Every quotation in this essay marked with an asterisk is a quote from Jackie Robinson.]
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