Sean Doolittle wasn’t trying to make a political statement in November 2015, when the Oakland Athletics reliever and his now-fiancee, Eireann Dolan, sponsored a Thanksgiving dinner for 17 Syrian refugee families in Chicago. His motive was strictly humanitarian.

“We just felt it was a way we could welcome them to America, to let them know there are people who are glad they’re here,” Doolittle said at the team’s spring training facility last week. “Never in a million years did we think that, a year and a half later, this would still be a hot-button issue.”