Former President Donald Trump asked to attend Saturday’s World Series Game 4 in Atlanta, and was not “invited” by Yankees president Randy Levine or MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, as he claimed.
“Looking forward to being at the World Series in Atlanta tonight,” Trump wrote in a statement on Saturday. “Thank you to the Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred, and Randy Levine of the great New York Yankees, for the invite. Melania and I are looking forward to a wonderful evening watching two great teams!”
This ran counter to a Wednesday report in USA Today, in which Braves CEO Terry McGuirk said, “He called MLB and wanted to come to the game. We were very surprised. Of course, we said yes.”
Levine was not available for comment, but two officials directly involved in the process said that McGuirk’s comments were accurate, and that neither Manfred nor Levine had reached out to extend an invitation.
According to those officials, Trump last week reached out to Manfred through an intermediary to say he would like to attend a game.
Manfred then called Levine, because of common ties to the intermediary. That was the extent of Levine’s involvement.
“[Levine] has nothing to do with who attends a World Series in Atlanta,” said one of the officials.
It wasn’t the first time that Trump fabricated an invitation by Levine and the Yankees.
In July 2020, shortly before director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out the first pitch at the MLB opener, a Yankees/Nationals game in Washington D.C., Trump said he would be doing the same in the Bronx.
“Randy Levine is a great friend of mine from the Yankees,” Trump said at the White House. “And he asked me to throw out the first pitch, and I think I’m doing that on Aug. 15 at Yankee Stadium.”
The Yankees had a general policy that if any high-ranking public official wanted to throw out a first pitch, it would likely happen — but the team had never scheduled the event that Trump claimed. Trump later said that he wouldn’t have been able to make it to Yankees Stadium on Aug. 15, after all.
