Former Boston Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz told a Boston-area radio host Tuesday that if he were still on the team, he would join the other players planning to skip an upcoming visit to the White House.
Ortiz, speaking to WEEI host Rob Bradford, expressed solidarity with several current players and manager Alex Cora, all of whom have said they will not meet with President Trump to celebrate the team’s 2018 World Series victory.
{mosads}Cora, who was born in Puerto Rico, has specifically said he will not attend in protest of Trump’s handling of disaster relief after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. Ortiz, who was born in the Dominican Republic, said he would skip a visit for similar reasons.
“When it comes down to the political side of it I don’t know much about politics and things like that. But when it comes down the way immigrants have been treated it’s something that goes a long way,” Ortiz told Bradford. “You don’t want to go and shake hands with a guy who is treating immigrants like s–t because I’m an immigrant.”
Ortiz, who played for the Red Sox from 2003 until his retirement in 2016, met with then-president George W. Bush after the team’s 2004 and 2007 victories and with Barack Obama after its 2013 win.
“I experienced George Bush a couple of times and then (Barack) Obama. Other than that everything was pretty much the same,” he said Monday. “Really well-organized and you get excited about going and seeing the President. But nowadays with all the controversy going on with the President, we have now and the sports teams not wanting to go it’s more of a challenge.”