If Blue Jays win the World Series, will they go to the White House? Here's what we know

You likely won’t find a Toronto Blue Jays fan anywhere in Canada ready to count their chickens before they hatch when it comes to the team’s chance to win this year’s World Series.

But if the Blue Birds can finish off the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 on Friday night — or in Saturday’s winner-take-all Game 7, if necessary — they’ll claim the organization’s first World Series title in 32 years.

Long after a victory parade through downtown Toronto and throughout the off-season, a question may linger in the minds of many fans: Will Canada’s only Major League Baseball team visit the White House like so many sports organizations before them?

Moreover, given the current tensions between Canada and the U.S., will President Donald Trump even extend one.

Here’s what we know.

After learning of Ontario’s anti-tariff ad campaign last week — one that aired to U.S. audiences during the first two games of the World Series before being pulled by Premier Doug Ford — Trump called off trade negotiations with Canada. He then promised to increase the tariff on unspecified Canadian goods by an additional 10 percent.

The president’s Truth Social and X accounts have been devoid of any World Series mentions, and he doesn’t appear to have made any comments since the series began, other than lamenting the advertisements that used the voice of former president Ronald Reagan from a 1987 radio address.

The White House issued an official presidential message ahead of Game 2 on Saturday in Toronto, celebrating the importance of the American tradition and the “two exceptional teams” that have made it this far.

“As the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays compete for the Commissioner’s Trophy, they remind us why baseball brings friends and neighbors together,” it reads.

“Melania and I send our best wishes to the players, coaches, and fans for a fun and safe series. May the best team win, and may God bless our national pastime and the United States of America.”

Trump, who has attended sporting events such as the Super Bowl and UFC fights since his inauguration, was not present for any of the three games played at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles this week.

The 1992 Toronto Blue Jays were, in fact, the first and last North American professional sports team from Canada to visit the White House.

The team was invited the day after defeating the Atlanta Braves in six games that October and made their trip to Washington in mid-December, as recounted in an article by Mark Davis from We Are, We Can, We Will: The 1992 World Champion Toronto Blue Jays.

“Our free trade agreement with Canada did not mean that the United States would trade away the world’s championship,” joked then-president George H.W. Bush about the North American Free Trade Agreement to be signed by himself, then-Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexico’s president at the time, the following day.

“By winning Canada’s first World Series … you did it with class … and class, of course, has marked the entire Blue Jays history. In 16 years, you’ve gone from the doghouse to the penthouse.”

The Blue Jays apparently visited the White House in 1992, just to be like "hey, George HW, your country got owned" pic.twitter.com/yqPsg8pUye

— ℳatt (matttomic.bsky.social) (@matttomic) November 11, 2015

When the Jays won the 1993 World Series, an invite was reportedly extended to the club on behalf of new president Bill Clinton, according to Sports Illustrated , but the team never attended.

Sports Illustrated also reported that the Montreal Canadiens, winners of the 1993 Stanley Cup — the last Canadian team to win an NHL championship — were invited but also chose not to go.

It was almost another quarter-century before a Canadian team won a major professional championship, when Toronto F.C. claimed the 2017 MLS Cup, but there’s no record of them having been invited or attending.

After the Toronto Raptors won the 2019 NBA Finals, Trump, while seated next to Justin Trudeau following discussions in Washington regarding the new Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), said an invite to the champs was under consideration.

“So we’ll think about that, if they’d like to do it, we’ll think about that,” he said, as reported by CBC .

Then-Raptors guard Danny Green doubted that his team would accept an invite.

“I try to respect everybody in every field that they do, regardless of how crazy things are. But he makes it really hard. He makes it very, very tough to respect how he goes about things and does things,” he said on Yahoo! Sports’ Inside the Green Room.

“To put it politely, I think it’s a hard no.”

The invite did come, according to NPR , but Green and the Raps never went to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

National Post has contacted the White House to inquire whether the World Series winner will be invited.

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