Red Sox say they’ll visit, Trump, White House; will become first pro team to visit since Eagles were disinvited
The Eagles were disinvited from their visit following their Super Bowl win.
The 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox will be celebrating at the White House, the team said Monday.
The Associated Press is reporting a date is in the works. Boston’s team president, Sam Kennedy, is letting his players decide if they want to attend.
If the visit happens, the Red Sox will be the first professional team to go to the White House after winning a title since the Pittsburgh Penguins went in 2017 after winning the Stanley Cup.
And it will be the first professional team to go since the Eagles were invited, said they would attend, and then disinvited by President Donald Trump after it came out that only a handful of players would be in attendance.
The disinvitation resulted in Trump holding a “celebration of America” on the White House lawn while fans in Philly held a small counter-protest outside City Hall.
Philadelphia’s other championship team, Villanova, officially said in October that it would not visit the White House.
“We probably wouldn’t be able to get everybody together. We’ve lost staff members, we’ve lost players [to the NBA],” said head coach Jay Wright, according to Reuters.
Wright also said the Wildcats never received an invitation.
The Red Sox making the visit is interesting because team manager Alex Cora said he will attend. Cora, who is from Puerto Rico, was critical of Trump’s comments about the death toll from Hurricane Maria earlier this fall -- Trump said he disagreed with the number of dead following the natural disaster, which Cora called “disrespectful.”
To be tweeting about 3,000 people ... it’s actually disrespectful for my country," said Cora, according to ESPN.
The AP reported that Cora said he will use his platform with the president “in the right way.”