‘white’ Sox the ones willing to meet with Donald Trump at White House

I’ll have to confess to experiencing a second or two of confusion when I learned of the blurb circulating on Twitter about how it was the white Sox who were willing to meet later this week with President Donald Trump.

Red Sox shortstop-turned-manager won't go

Actually, it is the Boston Red Sox who are making the trip to the White House on Thursday to fulfill the sporting tradition that a championship sports team gets to meet the president, shake hands and experience some of the aura of being at the presidential mansion.

IT’S SORT OF like the athletes who joke about “going to Disney World” to celebrate their sporting success.

But in the case of the Red Sox, it seems like it’s going to be a split squad of ballplayers who actually make the trip to the District of Columbia – which was timed to coincide with the Red Sox’ trip to nearby Baltimore to play the Orioles,

News reports out of Boston indicate that all of the Red Sox players who are black or of Latin American origins (with the exception of J.D. Martinez, who is of Cuban ethnicity) are the ones making a point of skipping a trip to see Trump, and his orange dye job that we’re supposed to pretend is a natural tanned complexion. Team manager Alex Cora, who is Puerto Rican, also is not participating, because he thinks Trump has been disrespectful to the Caribbean island commonwealth.

Whereas the white players, who probably think they’re being all-American, are the ones who will show up and allow themselves to be used by the president to build up political good will.

Ortiz wouldn't go, if he were still playing

OR WILL IT be the partial ballclub that is using the presidency to try to throw some sense of legitimacy to themselves? As though their World Series championship of 2018 isn’t enough praise in and of itself.

Personally, I always thought that sport teams visiting with politicians was just a bit phony. Since when it comes to professional athletes, we’re usually talking about the kinds of guys who could care less about politics.

They probably figure the politicos were the kinds of people who couldn’t hit a curve ball, so why should they care.

While some political people wind up going so overboard with their fandom and drooling for a taste of athletic glamour that they tend to embarrass themselves in the presence of ballplayers.

Bryant WAS willing to go, back in 2017

OF COURSE, THERE was the happening when the 2016 champion Chicago Cubs team managed to gain dual White House appearances. Outgoing President Barack Obama made a point of squeezing in a ball club visit in the final weeks before he departed the White House.

Then, Trump would not be deprived, He offered up a second visit – which saw a partial Cubs squad consisting mostly of the white players (Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Jon Lester were among those who attended) participate in the presence of Donald Trump.

Now, it seems that the national sense of hostility that is characteristic of this Age of Trump is making this the trend of all such athletic visits.

Although I also suspect many of the Trump supporters who are sports fans don’t object in the least – they probably see the Red Sox visit as consisting of the “real” American players, and probably fantasize about having the “foreigners” up for deportation the moment the lose a mile or two on the speed of their fast balls.

Would Abreu be welcomed at future visit?

WHICH REALLY IS a shame, in that professional athletics once was thought to be a place within our society where we could put aside the ideological nonsense of partisan politics.

Instead, it allows politics to stage a hostile takeover, of sorts, of sports.

There is one semi-humorous aspect of the pun that the white Sox are visiting the White House. For anybody who’s paid any attention knows the Chicago White Sox are still quite a ways away from the championship that we’re being told will result of the ballclub’s rebuild and would warrant a White House invitation.

Trump can only dream

But with the degree to which this team is counting on Latin American talent to bolster itself (Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada and promising minor league star Luis Robert are all Cuban-born, just to name a few), would that create a future White Sox championship team entirely unwilling to be seen in the company of The Donald? Or would Trump snub the ball club altogether?

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