Presidents at the Ballpark
Bygone Baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Every four years in late January a solemn ceremony takes place on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. The newly elected president will place his left hand on an open Bible and repeat the Presidential Oath of Office given by the Chief Justice of the United States: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of…”, and the new leader of the country is ready to assume the most powerful office in the world. Many presidents were baseball addicts, others were not. Here is a look at some of them. (Note: Dates given are years they served as President.)
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Many White House residents had close involvement with baseball long before William Howard Taft (1909-1913) began the Washington tradition when he threw out the first Opening Day baseball on April 14, 1910 at the Senators’ Griffith Park. The rotund Taft was a fine pitcher at Yale University, and a fan of both Hall of Famer Walter Johnson and the Washington ballclub. Presidents continued to throw out that “first ball” until the 1970’s when our National Capitol saw their last big league team leave town.
It might be a myth, or it might be fact, or maybe a combination thereof, but as the story goes…He was playing a highly contested baseball game when a message was delivered to him. The messenger was told to wait, and only later did that ballplayer find out that the Republican Party had nominated him for President. The year was 1860, and the man who was too busy playing ball was Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865). When living in the White House, Lincoln would walk out and watch a few minutes of baseball played in what is now called the Elipse. Old Abe was the first president to see an actual baseball game when he saw a contest with the War Department commissary and quartermaster divisions in 1862 with son Tad sitting on his lap.
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) was a Yankee fan, and managed his Stanford University baseball team while Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was not only an excellent softball pitcher, but he twice threw out the “first balls” for the Atlanta Braves when he was the governor of Georgia. The most unusual “presidential pitcher” was probably Harry Truman (1945-1953) who tossed out two baseballs, one by his left hand and then by his right arm. Harry had thick glasses as a child, and was never picked for a team, and remembers, “I umpired because I couldn’t see enough to bat.” The third president of the country, Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), wrote, “Games played with the ball…are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.”
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) broadcast the Chicago Cub games on radio in the 1930’s, and portrayed the great pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, who was named for a president, in a 1952 movie called The Winning Team. While it is not connected with baseball, one of President Reagan’s most memorable films was Knute Rockne, All American (1940) when he depicted Notre Dame’s tragic George Gipp. Who will ever forget …Win just one for the Gipper!
Although Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) was lukewarm on the game, but his wife Grace was called the First Lady of Baseball. President Coolidge was most fortunate in that he was able to see his Senators win their first-ever American League pennant and World Series including the exciting Game 7 with the New York Giants. When Washington’s immortal Walter Johnson came over to meet the president, Silent Cal said simply, “Nice work. I’m glad you won.” Calvin’s interest in the game might have been more for political advantages, but Grace loved the game. After her husband had left the game earlier, Grace would remain in the Presidential box until the final out.
The only known president to play professional baseball was Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) who is believed to have played with the Kansas State League under the alias of “Wilson”, and was on both the baseball and football teams at the United States Military Academy (West Point). George Bush was captain and first baseman of the Yale University baseball club, collected baseball cards, once met Babe Ruth, and appeared in the NCAA College World Series. In an interview Bush said that a baseball scout once approached him, but “I knew that I was heading for the business world.”
At the age of 39 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) was crippled by polio, and although he could never again walk without assistance he became the thirty-second President of the United States. Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators for many years, recalled this remark by FDR, “If I didn’t have to hobble up those steps in from of all of those people, I’d be out at that ball park every day.”
When World War II took many baseball players into military service, there was a question regarding professional baseball during wartime. Roosevelt answered that with his “Green Light Letter” of January 15, 1942 when he wrote to baseball’s Commissioner Landis, “…I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going…”
It did.