Los Angeles Dodgers first basemen Adrian Gonzales didn’t join his team at Trump International Hotel and Tower in May, saying he had his reasons for making reservations independent of the rest of his team. Now, the story is making waves.
“I didn’t stay there,” Gonzalez said at the time, when the team played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, according to the Washington Post. “I had my reasons.”
Gonzales, a Latino like 40 percent of Dodgers fans, according to the Los Angeles Times, was born in San Diego and lived in Tijuana as a child. Both of his parents were born in Mexico.
“I’m Mexican and I’m American,” he told the LA Times in 2013.
Headlines about Gonzales’ refusal to stay at Trump’s Chicago hotel came as the New York Times explored a novel form of protest against Trump in a story published Monday: Would-be and former customers are boycotting his hotels, restaurants, and golf courses nationwide.
But in May, and on Monday, after the Post published a story about Gonzales skipping out on Trump’s hotel, he insisted the move was not meant to be a public political statement.
“We’re here to play baseball not talk politics,” he told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in May.
“I wasn’t doing it for publicity, I wasn’t doing it for people to look at me or talk about me,” he told the Times on Monday. “That’s not who I am. I just have my own values and morals that I want to live by.”
“You can draw your own conclusions. They’re probably right,” he said.
