LOS ANGELES \u2014 After wondering aloud if \u201cthere was intent\u201d regarding airline delays for his team\u2019s traveling party leaving Toronto, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts downplayed any suggestion that the Canadian government had played a role in his staff\u2019s hellish travel day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the Prime Minister is not worried about calling airline security or the FAA to make sure that they delay us,\u201d Roberts told The Athletic. \u201cI know that. Obviously. I think the Prime Minister has bigger fish to fry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dodgers were scheduled to work out at 5 p.m. at Dodger Stadium, which will host the Blue Jays for Game 3 of the World Series on Monday. But Roberts and his staff did not arrive at the ballpark until around that time, after losing several hours to delays while flying from Toronto Pearson Airport to Los Angeles International Airport.<\/p>\n
When asked at his news conference about the travel, Roberts managed a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get too far into it,\u201d he said. \u201cI just arrived about 30 minutes ago. So there was some delays. I don\u2019t know if there was intent or not. But, man, the international stuff was a bear. But we made it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments sparked some outrage on social media, in part, because United States customs would process the team\u2019s return to California. The Blue Jays cross the border, passing through U.S. customs, on every road trip. When they return to Toronto, there is another stop with Canadian customs. At points this year, though, particularly stringent customs officers have delayed the team for over an hour. It\u2019s an accepted aspect of Major League Baseball outside the United States.<\/p>\n
When later approached by The Athletic, Roberts conceded that he \u201ccould have omitted \u2018intent,\u2019\u201d when outlining the travel woes.<\/p>\n
For the World Series games in Toronto, which the two teams split, the Dodgers carried a traveling party of about 400 people spread across four planes. The players fly on their own plane, which left Toronto after the game on Saturday and arrived in Los Angeles without incident. Roberts, the coaches and the rest of the staff did not depart until Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe process was very long,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut a lot of it had to do with our big, huge, four-plane travel party. It\u2019s just a part of international travel. And passports. Airline security. That\u2019s part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For what it is worth, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney did pick the Blue Jays to win in six. But that was unrelated to the Dodgers\u2019 issues leaving the country on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada is not trying to sabotage the Dodgers,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI know that. It was just a long day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Athletic\u2019s Mitch Bannon contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 After wondering aloud if \u201cthere was intent\u201d regarding airline delays for his team\u2019s traveling party…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,487,462,82,507],"class_list":{"0":"post-242948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}