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Adventures in Overreach, Part IV: Dodgers Throw a Bean Ball at Trump

And to wrap up this theme, let's now talk a bit about the world of sports. Not too long ago, Politico ran a piece headlined: "Trump looks to meddle in the sports world like no president before," along with the subhead: "He sees power in dominating sports arenas as much as policy arenas." The basic point of the article is that Trump understands that people really like and care about sports, and that by association he can get some good PR and can burnish his own "manly" credentials.

It is true that Trump has aggressively insinuated himself into the world of sports during the first 6 months of his second term. He shows up at UFC events. He attended the Super Bowl. He rode in "The Beast" at the Daytona 500, providing the pacing for one pre-race lap. He's hosted several champion teams at the White House. He also used some muscle to get Hall of Fame eligibility restored for the deceased Pete Rose.

That said, Politico oversells the case just a wee bit, presumably to make the article seem stronger. Theodore Roosevelt palled around with professional boxers. William Howard Taft threw the first pitch out at a Washington Senators game in 1910, and every sitting president since then, save Jimmy Carter, continued the tradition. Richard Nixon literally drew up plays for the football team that was then known as the Washington Redskins. Barack Obama always made a point of sharing his NCAA Tournament picks, for both the men's and the women's Division I tournaments.

The point is that Trump did not have some sort of unique insight when it comes to utilizing sports to burnish his image. When it comes to Trump and sports, there are really two main differences between him and his predecessors. The first is that he's much more willing to use the sports world to wage culture-wars battles. The second is that other presidents largely won't go to major sporting events because the security arrangements are expensive and are detrimental to the enjoyment of other fans. Trump cares little about such considerations, by contrast.

In any event, hanging around with successful athletes, who are not only "winners" but are generally also physically fit and good looking, produces a version of the halo effect that makes the president (or any other politician) seem like a good-looking winner. It also makes a politician seem like a man, or a woman, of the people. So, hosting the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball champion University of Florida Gators at the White House, or playing golf with Bryson DeChambeau are the kinds of things that are all-upside for Trump.

The problem, as we have endeavored to illustrate today, is that Trump just can't leave well enough alone. As we note above, he has moved beyond the meet-and-greets to using sports as a means of fighting the culture wars. That might be a winner and it might not be; it could go either way. But even that is not enough; he's now also decided to use sports as a way of getting some attention for his immigration policy.

The case study here is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were put into a real bind by the anti-ICE protests that broke out across Los Angeles. On one hand, the team is a multi-billion-dollar business that wants to stay on the good side of a president who has no problem using the powers of government to punish his perceived enemies. Further, the team draws nearly 4 million fans per year, which means they have customers of all political stripes. On the other hand, Dodger Stadium was built on land cleared by forcibly removing a prosperous Mexican-American community in the 1940s. So, there's sort of a your-hands-are-dirty dynamic, somewhat like buildings constructed with slave labor. Further, an enormous percentage of the team's fanbase is Latino (particularly Mexican-American).

The upshot is that the team's silence on the ICE raids was both noticeable and was odious to a lot of Dodger supporters. This resulted in a column by L.A. Times reporter Dylan Hernandez (full disclosure: former colleague of Z when they were both at the Daily Bruin) headlined "Cowardly Dodgers remain silent as ICE raids terrorize their fans." Before publishing, Hernandez asked Dodgers management for comment, and executive vice president and chief marketing officer Lon Rosen categorically refused to say anything.

This was about as much as the Trump administration could have hoped for. There is no chance that a team whose fanbase is 40% Latino is going to come out with a pro-ICE statement. However, the Dodgers' silence, given the circumstances, spoke volumes. So, the smart move would have been for the White House to take the semi-win, and to move on.

That, of course, is not what this White House does. Instead, some genius (DHS Secretary Kristi Noem?) decided to press the advantage, and to dispatch ICE vehicles to Dodger Stadium, presumably to round up a few "suspected" undocumented immigrants, and to steal some headlines. This forced the Dodgers to take a side, and it most certainly was not the side of ICE. In fact, the team told ICE to take their vehicles and their masked officers and get lost. Someone at ICE then got on eX-Twitter and accused the Dodgers of lying: "False. We were never there."

There is, of course, one small problem with that claim. It's downtown LA. It's Dodger Stadium. There are cameras everywhere. And so, it took just minutes for the Internet to be flooded with both video and photographs of the ICE vehicles parked right outside of Dodger Stadium, and then being forced to turn around and leave. The Trump administration still couldn't just take the loss, and so ICE promptly announced that yes, they had technically been outside Dodger Stadium, but it was just because one of their vehicles suffered a garden-variety breakdown, and it just so happened to be on the road outside the Stadium. With sonic-boom-like speed, once again, it took just minutes for the Internet to raise two salient points: (1) Why would a dozen vehicles be needed to take care of one broken-down vehicle? and (2) the roads into Dodger Stadium don't lead to anything BUT Dodger Stadium, so there is no reason to be on those roads EXCEPT to go to Dodger Stadium.

In the end, the Dodgers—who, again, really wanted to remain above the fray—not only ended up in a pissing contest with ICE, but they also issued the anti-ICE statement that Hernandez demanded in his column. The team also announced a $1 million donation meant to help families affected by the ICE raids.

One might fairly well say that the Trump administration had lemonade, and made lemons. The whole incident DID produce a lot of headlines, but not the kind the White House wanted. Instead, it made ICE look arbitrary and capricious and dishonest and... kind of weak. In general, a lot of people don't really like to see politics mixed with sports. And to lie in wait outside a sporting event (something that the administration HAS done with other teams) is a bad look. It may please the Stephen Millers of the world, but it's not going to please too many other people.

Trump & Co. are going to have a chance to repeat this mistake (and variants of this mistake) on a much larger scale. As chance would have it, the U.S. will host both of the world's most high-profile sporting events during Trump's second term: the World Cup in 2026, and the Summer Olympics in 2028, in both cases primarily in cities with large immigrant populations—the World Cup will stage matches in a dozen or so U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston, while the Olympics will be (mostly) hosted by Los Angeles and its surrounding locales.

Already, Trumpism may well be having an adverse effect on the World Cup. The famous tournament, the one that will be held in 2026, features teams organized by nation. However, as a lead-up to the 2026 event, FIFA has re-constituted the FIFA Club World Cup. That one, which is underway now, involves professional teams that normally play in national leagues (in other words, the 2026 World Cup might have a match between the national team of Spain and the national team of England, whereas the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup might have a match between Real Madrid and Manchester City).

Reader J.G. in San Diego, CA, was the first to bring to our attention that the opening game of the 2025 tournament took place in Miami a little over a week ago, with Inter Miami, of Major League Soccer, facing off against the Al-Ahly Sporting Club, of the Egyptian Premier League. Because association football fans are pretty fanatical, and because Lionel Messi plays for Inter Miami, tickets for the game were initially selling in the $300 range. But then, ICE announced that they would be in attendance, and that non-American citizens would need to provide proof that they are in the country legally.

Naturally, there are some people who might attend a match in Miami who are not in the country legally. There are also some who are in the country legally, but might not be able to easily summon the correct paperwork. On top of that, however, this is an administration that has shown a willingness to target people who are playing by the rules (e.g., those appearing at immigration court hearings), so as to make quotas. This is also an administration that has deported people who were in the country legally, and without anything resembling due process (see Garcia, Kilmar Abrego).

Add it up, and anyone who looks even faintly Latino/a can't feel terribly comfortable being at a game where ICE is patrolling, even if their paperwork is in order, even if they are citizens. And the fanbase for this particular sport, especially in Miami, tends to be overwhelmingly of Latino/a descent. So, the ticket prices crashed. Inter Miami, for its part, had great difficulty selling out the venue, and was offering student tickets for $20, plus four additional seats for free (which would seem to work out to $4 a ticket). Even non-students could get on StubHub and buy tickets for as little as $6. That is rather less than $300.

Again, we have no doubt that the Stephen Millers of the world think this is just fine and dandy. But we think we are on strong footing in saying that it will not work to the benefit of Trump or of the Republican Party if ICE manages to ruin the World Cup and/or the Olympics. That becomes doubly true if, out of concern, FIFA or the IOC decide to relocate their events. In particular, the World Cup is already set to be staged across three countries, with Canada and Mexico also hosting matches. It would not be THAT difficult to just relocate some of the matches scheduled for the U.S. to the Great White North, and to move the rest south of the border.

That's the price of overreach. Or one of them, at least. (Z)



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