Dodgers cap off 2024 World Series win with White House visit
By Jill Martin, CNN
(CNN) — The Los Angeles Dodgers made their anticipated trip to the White House on Monday, visiting with Donald Trump to celebrate their World Series title and keeping up a longstanding tradition of sports champions meeting the US president.
Trump called Dodgers manager Dave Roberts “one of the greatest managers ever to wear the Dodger blue,” and he also notably shook hands with Mookie Betts, who back in 2019 had opted not to visit the White House when he was a member of the 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.
“That guy can play, can’t he?” Trump said of Betts. “I mean, unbelievable.”
During the visit in the East Room of the White House, Clayton Kershaw presented Trump with a custom Dodgers jersey with the number 47 on it. Later, Shohei Ohtani got to spend time with Trump in the Oval Office.
In a 2019 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Roberts previously indicated he would decline an invite. But last month, Roberts said, according to ESPN, that “it’s a great honor for all of us” to visit the White House.
Betts, meanwhile, according to the Los Angeles Times, recently called it a “regret” that he didn’t visit in 2019, which was during Trump’s first term.
Betts also said, according to the Times, that in hindsight he felt his absence in 2019 distracted from the team’s accomplishment and that it had made the news more about him, which he called “selfish.”
“This is not about me; I don’t want anything to be about me,” Betts said, per the Times last week. “This is about the Dodgers. Because these boys were there for me.”
The-CNN-Wire
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