Photo: Joe Kelly/instagram
Joe Kelly had a special look for his White House visit on Friday.
The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, 33, showed up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to meet President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris wearing a custom embroidered black and white Mariachi jacket.
His frock was a gift from Grover Castro, a trumpeter with Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar. The band performed at Dodgers' Stadium for the team’s June 27 face-off against the Cubs, and while warming up before the game, Kelly and Castro struck up a conversation on the field.
Turns out, Kelly wanted Castro’s coat, and offered up his personal baseball jersey in exchange.
“Wanna trade?” Kelly asked, in a video of their chat posted to the band’s Instagram page. “Your jacket for my jersey.”
Kelly’s bargaining paid off. Later in the clip, the athlete jogged over to Castro in the stands, and swapped stuff.
“Awesome man, thank you. Appreciate it, man!” Castro said, excitedly showing off the jersey for the camera.
Justin Turner, Kelly’s teammate, posted a photo of the pair on Instagram Friday showing Kelly sporting the jacket with his button down and slacks.
“Chillin with a legend in them #WhiteHouse,” Turner captioned the photo.
Mariachi Garibaldi were excited to see the pitcher bring out the jacket for such an important event! They re-posted the photos of Kelly on their Instagram, announcing that he had become an honorary member of the band.
“New member alert,” the band joked in the post’s caption. “Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar in the White House! Check out what Joe Kelly wore to meet President Joe Biden at the White House! ¡Que Vivan Los Dodgers!”
“New fashion trend?” they asked.
The Dodgers win at the 2020 World Series was their first in 32 years. The team last won in 1988.
Mookie Betts helped them cement their win against the Tampa Bay Rays, with a home run in the bottom of the 8th. Three decades of waiting was ended swiftly in the 9th, Julio Urias dashing the Rays' final hopes with a 1-2-3 inning leading to a final score of 3-1 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
“The Dodgers are a lot more than a baseball club. They really are. They’re a pillar of American culture and American progress,” President Biden said on Friday. “And that’s for real.”
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This is the first time a championship team has visited the White House since Biden took office in January.
At Friday’s ceremony, the president also spoke about the importance of athletics in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “I think what we discovered is we need sports more than we ever realized.”
“Above all, as we beat this pandemic and celebrate fans coming back to stadiums, we celebrate something else: a national achievement,” he added. “We came together as fellow Americans, front-line workers, friends, families, neighbors looking out for one another. Dodgers Stadium was the heart of that effort.”
source: people.com
