Los Angeles Dodgers player Adrian Gonzalez didn’t stay with his teammates at the Trump International Hotel in Chicago during an early season road trip, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported Sunday.
“I didn’t stay there,” Gonzalez told reporter JP Hoornstra. “I had my reasons.”
Gonzalez didn’t explain further, and said he was focused on baseball, not politics, during the Dodgers’ NLCS matchup with the Chicago Cubs in May.
But as Hoornstra noted, there’s a fairly likely explanation: The Mexican-American first baseman probably isn’t fond of the derogatory comments Donald Trump has made about Mexicans during his presidential campaign.
Gonzalez has taken vocal political stands on immigration issues in the past. In 2010, he was among the players who spoke out forcefully against Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law, and he briefly threatened to boycott the 2011 MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix.
“It’s immoral,” Gonzalez said of the Arizona law in 2010. “They’re violating human rights. In a way, it goes against what this country was built on. This is discrimination. Are they going to pass out a picture saying, ‘You should look like this and you’re fine, but if you don’t, do people have the right to question you?’ That’s profiling.”
The Dodgers aren’t staying at the Trump International during their NLCS matchup with the Cubs, the team told the Press-Telegram, because of logistical problems. Gonzalez, meanwhile, is hardly only American who has avoided Trump’s hotels and other businesses because of the positions the Republican presidential nominee has staked out during the campaign.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularlyincitespolitical violence and is a
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