Staff Reports
President Donald Trump is welcoming the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the Rose Garden today for a White House ceremony. The event is supposed to be a simple tradition: celebrate a sports title and honor the players. Instead, predictable outrage has followed, with local columnists calling the visit “tone deaf” and a few players choosing not to attend.
White House tradition meets manufactured controversy
Every champion used to get a tip of the cap at the White House. That changed when covering for politics became a full‑time job for some reporters and pundits. The Dodgers are not endorsing a policy by accepting an invitation. They are accepting recognition for winning the World Series. Yet the drumbeat from critics insists this is an “insult to fans” because of unrelated immigration enforcement stories in Los Angeles. If everything is political now, nothing is.
Players choosing not to go — personal choice or public signaling?
Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández said he won’t attend, citing a rehab assignment and admitting “I probably wouldn’t have gone.” Mookie Betts has also said family reasons kept him away. Fine — attendance should be optional. But when skipping a photo op becomes a political statement, athletes risk trading fans for headlines. Manager Dave Roberts was right to say it’s an individual choice. He was wrong if he let the team’s public face get pulled into a culture war that was never their job to fight.
MLB’s selective policing and the Treinen angle
Then there’s the curious case of Blake Treinen saying MLB “chastised” him for writing Charlie Kirk’s name on his cap. If the league punishes conservative expression but tolerates other partisan displays, that’s a problem. Fans want their ballplayers to play baseball, not navigate selective speech rules handed down from suits worried about PR. The whole episode shows the hypocrisy: some views are policed, some are embraced, and the rest of us get lectured about “tone” while the scoreboard counts runs, not viewpoints.
Keep the game above the noise
The simplest answer is also the best: the White House visit should be a celebration of a team and a sport, not a referendum on national politics. President Trump is honoring a champion. The Dodgers and their players can accept that honor, skip it quietly, or show up and smile — all valid. But let’s stop pretending every handshake with the President is a moral failing. Fans come to the ballpark to escape the outrage factory. Maybe it’s time the media took a timeout and let them.
