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President Donald Trump welcomed the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House on Thursday and offered high praise for star player Shohei Ohtani, drawing comparisons to baseball legend Babe Ruth. The visit occurred during a scheduled off day as the team continued an East Coast road trip, providing Trump the opportunity to spotlight Ohtani’s historic accomplishments in professional baseball.
Trump emphasized Ohtani’s unprecedented achievement of earning three consecutive unanimous league MVP awards, a distinction no other player in baseball history has accomplished. The president noted that Ohtani’s 2024 season featured a franchise-record 55 home runs while simultaneously maintaining elite pitching performance—a dual excellence Trump suggested paralleled Ruth’s own ability to excel at multiple positions.
Over the 2024 and 2025 seasons combined, Ohtani accumulated 99 home runs while leading the National League with a 1.025 on-base plus slugging percentage. After missing the 2024 season due to elbow surgery, Ohtani returned to pitching in 2025 with a 2.87 ERA and 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings, matching his performance rate from 2022 when he led the American League in that metric.
Trump referenced the 1920 trade that sent Ruth from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, calling it the worst trade in sports history. The Red Sox received $100,000 and a $300,000 loan for Fenway Park in that transaction, a deal Trump suggested demonstrated the magnitude of Ruth’s talent.
Ohtani’s current 2025 campaign shows continued excellence, with a .283 batting average, 22 home runs, 60 RBIs and six stolen bases across 94 games as a hitter. As a pitcher, he holds an 8-2 record with a 1.79 ERA in 14 starts, though he recently missed time due to a knee issue while the Dodgers pursue a third consecutive World Series title.
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