Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez Boycotts Trump Hotels

LOS ANGELES, CA — As he plays the game of his career, just two wins away from the Dodgers’ first World Series berth in decades, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez finds himself making headlines in the presidential election.

For months, Gonzalez has been quietly boycotting properties owned by Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump, but word of Gonzalez’s private stance was leaked this week, forcing the ballplayer to publicly acknowledge his distaste for the man who called Mexican immigrants “rapists.”

"I don't want this to be a story,'' the San Diego-born Mexican-American told the Los Angeles Times. "I did it for myself.''

Gonzalez said he has no desire to become part of the presidential campaign, which Trump kicked off with a vow to build a border wall and his infamous tirade against Mexican immigrants, “They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.”

But Gonzalez said his personal boycott was a personal moral decision, he said.

Word of his boycott got out after the Dodgers visited Chicago in May. Gonzalez asked the team to book him in a hotel other than the Trump International Hotel & Tower. According to the Los Angeles Times, one of the team’s broadcasters told a newspaper reporter this week. The story went viral even though the team was staying at another hotel during the series against the Cubs.

"I wasn't doing it for publicity, I wasn't doing it for people to look at me or talk about me,'' Gonzalez told The Times.

Gonzalez’s stance immediately earned him criticism as well as widespread praise, including a Forbes.com article encouraging more athletes to express their political conscience. Some on social media declared Gonzalez a hero, but that's not what he wanted, he said. Gonzalez said he does not want to be another 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is kneeling during the national anthem in a high-profile gesture to protest police brutality and racial inequality.

"That’s not who I am. I just have my own values and morals that I want to live by,'' he added.

Photo: Keith Allison on Flickr