U.S. President Donald Trump met with the Los Angeles Dodgers, champions of the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, at the White House on the 7th (local time).
Trump invited the Dodgers, who are in Washington, D.C., for a three-game series against the Washington Nationals from the 7th to the 9th, to the White House for a celebration and congratulatory event.
During the event, Trump shook hands with Tommy Hyun-soo Edman, a Korean American who played for the Korean national team in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), and called him the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the series (National League Championship Series (NLCS)).
Edman achieved 11 hits in 27 at-bats (batting average of 0.407), with 1 home run, 11 runs batted in, and an on-base plus slugging (OPS) of 1.023 during the six games of the NLCS against the New York Mets last postseason, earning him the series MVP.
Trump praised Edman for having "a lot of talent" for winning the series MVP and noted, "He had a batting average of .470 and 11 RBIs in the six games of the (American League Championship Series) ALCS. That's pretty good, isn't it?"
Trump also shook hands with Shohei Ohtani, who set the MLB record for the first-ever 50-50 season (over 50 home runs and 50 steals) last year and won the National League MVP, describing him as "like a movie star."
Trump greeted Mookie Betts, a powerful hitter who boycotted the White House visit due to Trump's racially insensitive remarks, although he had the opportunity to visit the White House as a member of the Boston Red Sox, the MLB champions in 2018.
Additionally, Trump shook hands with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who had a tense relationship with Trump after openly criticizing the team's pitcher substitutions in the 2018 World Series, and encouraged him.
Roberts, who was offended by Trump's criticism in 2018, expressed his unwillingness to attend the event, responding to the question, "If you win the World Series, will you visit the White House?" with, "Just going to Washington to play away games is enough," but he attended the event that day.