Mookie Betts Sits Out Dodgers’ White House Visit With Trump, Cites New Baby Over Politics

On Thursday, as the World Series champion Dodgers gathered at the White House for a Rose Garden celebration hosted by President Donald Trump, one of the team’s biggest names was notably absent — and insists his reason has nothing to do with politics.

Eight-time All-Star Mookie Betts told reporters earlier this month he’d likely skip the trip, opting instead to spend a rare off day at home following the birth of his third child. “I’m not trying to make this a whole big deal,” Betts said. “We just had a baby. You don’t get many days off… I just want to hang out with the fam.”

The scheduling lined up conveniently: rather than visiting during a road series against the Nationals or Orioles as teams typically do, the Dodgers used a gap between series against the Phillies and Mets to make the Washington trip, giving Betts a built-in reason to stay behind.

Betts went out of his way to preempt the inevitable speculation about his motives. “If I do [go], people are gonna hate me. If I don’t, people are gonna hate me,” he said, adding that his choice reflected putting his own family first rather than trying to satisfy everyone else. He acknowledged the optics regardless: “People are gonna try to drag me into politics, just because I am who I am. That’s just the cards I’m dealt.”

This marks the second time in Betts’s career he’s passed on a White House visit during a Trump presidency. He also stayed home after Boston’s 2018 championship, a decision he later said he regretted, telling reporters afterward that skipping “made it about me.”

He did attend during President Joe Biden‘s term with the 2020 Dodgers, and again last year following Los Angeles’s most recent title.

He isn’t the only notable absence this time around. Utility man Kiké Hernández is also sitting out, though for a different reason — he’s currently on a rehab assignment recovering from a left oblique strain. Asked whether he’d have gone if healthy, Hernández didn’t hesitate: “Probably not.” He described last year’s visit as “kind of a lose-lose situation” for him, a comment that stood in some tension with team president Stan Kasten‘s earlier claim that every player wanted to make the trip.

Manager Dave Roberts, for his part, has framed the visit as a nonpartisan tradition honoring the team’s on-field success rather than a political statement, even as the club navigates a growing list of players choosing to opt out.