Presidents and Baseball — Baseball Bench Coach

As your Coach, I’ve let you down the last few weeks. Instead of being tuned to the MLB network and watching my favorite sport, I kept turning on CNN and other news networks for the latest in the race for the presidency. Maybe I should stick to the baseball pennant races. With the presidency though clearly in the back of my mind, I thought it would be good to research how our American Presidents have adopted baseball as the national pastime. Let’s take a look.

While the first professional baseball team can be traced to 1869, how Presidents are closely linked with baseball begins before then with our nation’s first, George Washington. Apparently, General Washington during the Revolutionary War loved playing the English game of “rounders” with the troops. John Adams followed suit by playing what he journaled as “bat and ball”. And then there’s Andrew Jackson, our seventh President, who enjoyed a good game of “one old cat”, which is said to be also similar to the game of baseball that we adopted.

Next month the Democratic National Convention rolls into Chicago. In 1860, a Committee of the Chicago Convention met in Chicago and nominated Abraham Lincoln to be the Republican candidate on the Fall ballot. Mr. Lincoln was at his home in Springfield, Illinois, when the nomination was made. A party of messengers traveled to Springfield to deliver the news in person, but found that Lincoln was not available immediately. He was on a ball field and told the group to wait so he could finish his at bat.

During President Franklin Roosevelt’s terms in office, he also played a role in baseball’s history. On May 24, 1935, he threw a White House switch to signify the lighting of the first MLB night game at Crosley Field in Cincinnati between the Reds and the Dodgers. Of course, FDR and our country were faced with Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, as America entered World War II. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote FDR that he was prepared to close down baseball for the war. FDR simply responded, “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.” Sixty years later President George W. Bush referenced FDR’s “for the country” message in throwing out the first pitch to open the 2001 World Series following the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The Bush family has been long connected to baseball. The late legendary Dodgers announcer, Vin Scully, loved to tell the story of playing baseball against George H.W. Bush in college, Scully for Fordham and Bush with Yale. Scully recounted that his favorite honor was being named to the National College Baseball Hall of Fame with the George H.W. Bush Distinguished Alumnus award. After Bush’s presidency, you would often see him and former First Lady Barbara attending Astros games in the first row as season ticket holders. Indeed, their son, George W. Bush, follows baseball closely. Prior to serving as governor of Texas, W. was a managing partner of the Texas Rangers.

President Ronald Reagan’s love for baseball was widely known. In the 1930s he worked as a sports broadcaster for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. Instead of attending the games, he would receive transcriptions of the plays and delight the Iowa radio audience with his commentary. In 1937 he was asked to broadcast Cubs spring training games at Catalina Island off the California coast. He was pretty good at it, as Paramount Pictures signed him on the spot launching his acting career. One of Reagan’s best known movie roles was in the baseball film “The Winning Team” with Doris Day. At the end of Reagan’s presidency, on September 30, 1988, he joined Harry Caray in the Wrigley Field broadcasting booth. He famously joked: “You know in a few months I’m going to be out of work and thought I might as well audition.”

There are, of course, lots of Presidential traditions tied with baseball. On April 14, 1910, President William Howard Taft tossed the first ceremonial pitch from his seats in the stands to the Senators’ HOF pitcher, Walter Johnson. Taft started a tradition that continues today. The most intriguing one was President Woodrow Wilson throwing out the first pitch in the World Series with an unknown woman, Edith Gault, by his side. She would soon become his new wife. Years later, President Kennedy continued the tradition at three consecutive Washington Senators’ home openers. A lifelong Red Sox fan, he never threw out a first pitch at Fenway Park. President U.S. Grant was the first President to entertain baseball teams at the White House. In 1872 he hosted the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. It is now customary that the World Series winners are welcomed at the White House to celebrate their championship.

As is so often the case with baseball history, Babe Ruth plays a fun role here. He personally knew six of our nation’s Presidents. Early in his career, he famously voted for Woodrow Wilson with his affable “always a great friend of mine”. In 1920, after his first season as a Yankee when he hit 54 home runs, he was asked by the GOP to endorse Warren Harding against Democrat James Cox. Ruth declined and proclaimed, “I’m a Democrat!” After his storied career, in 1944, the Babe did surprisingly endorse Republican Governor Thomas Dewey of New York over FDR. While calling FDR “a great man”, he smiled and said that America needs a “new pitcher in the White House.”

Who will be on the mound in the White House next January 20th is a game that will play out over the coming months. As your Coach, I promise to keep my focus on baseball until the end of the 2024 regular season.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach