At least 1 Nationals player is ditching the team's White House visit

(Image credit: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

last updated 3 November 2019

The Washington Nationals are set to celebrate their first ever World Series title with a parade through the nation's capital Saturday, and the team will then head to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Monday to meet with President Trump, who is welcoming the team with open arms despite the chorus of boos he heard last week at Nationals Park during Game 5.

It'd be hard to imagine any member of the team is skipping out on Saturday's festivities, but at least one player has decided to skip out on the White House visit. Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle, who bounced back from an up-and-down regular season with a strong performance throughout the playoffs says he just can't do it, citing Trump's penchant for insults and racist language, The New York Times reports. "The rhetoric, time and time again, has enabled those kind of behaviors," Doolittle, who has never been shy about brandishing his liberal viewpoint, said. "That never really went away, but it feels like now people with those beliefs, they maybe feel a little bit more empowered. They feel like they have a path, maybe. I don't want to hang out with somebody who talks like that."

While Doolittle is the first Nationals player to confirm he won't be attending the visit, others are still mulling it over, The Washington Post reports. Athletes have skipped out on the tradition frequently since Trump took office. For example, the U.S. women's national soccer team, which won the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, and the Golden State Warriors, who won the 2018 NBA title, decided as teams not to attend at all.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.