The Boston Red Sox will follow the lead of last year’s World Series champion Houston Astros in visiting President Trump at the White House, team president Sam Kennedy announced on Monday.
#RedSox President Sam Kennedy just told reporters the Sox have been invited to the White House and accepted. No date determined yet. Could be before the regular season.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) December 3, 2018
Fresh off their ninth World Series title in franchise history and one of the most-successful seasons in recently MLB history, it’s somewhat of a surprise that the Red Sox have accepted said invitation.
Primarily, the focus here has to be on those Red Sox players and figures with ties to Puerto Rico.
Manager Alex Cora, who visited the United States territory after winning the World Series, was very critical of President Trump following Hurricane Maria.
“To be tweeting about 3,000 people and be efficient, it’s actually disrespectful for my country. … And like I said, hey man, thank you for helping us. He went down there, he did what he did,” Cora said Earlier in the year, via Fox News. “I hate talking about politics and all that, but I think this is more than politics,” Cora said. “This is about a country that really suffered, we still, you see the hurricanes forming now. Everybody’s panicking. It’s not easy.”
This was in response to a tweet from President Trump questioning the reported death toll from one of the worst natural disasters to hit the island.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
Multiple members of the Red Sox are from Puerto Rico, raising questions about whether they will actually attend an event that had been an annual tradition since prior to Trump’s election in November of 2016.
The question to ask: will @RedSox Puerto Rican players visit the @WhiteHouse? https://t.co/2JEOLZrDvR
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) December 3, 2018
The NBA’s Golden State Warriors did not visit with President Trump after winning each of the past two championships. But it appears a growing divide between the sports world and Mr. Trump has not extended to MLB.
At the very least, when we look at it from the Red Sox’ organization and its perspective. When it comes to players actually attending, only time will tell.