But Donald Trump skipped it, even though he was a star baseball player in high school. The same goes for President Biden. With the two men scheduled for a rematch this fall, the D.C. president's ceremonial first pitch, including a complete game and a pitcher's at-bat, could fade into oblivion.
“Baseball was truly the national pastime, and it was a bond, a continuation, and an advertisement for baseball,” said Kurt, author of “Presidents and Pastimes: Baseball History and the White House” and former speechwriter.・Mr. Smith said. For George H.W. Bush. Smith called its possible demise “very sad.”
“And I say that more as a student of history than as a baseball fan, because we have very few survival rituals,” he said. “And there are very limited ways to pass the baton and pass the umbilical cord from one successor to the next.”
In 2017, his first year in office, Trump turned down an offer from the Nationals to throw out the first pitch. The White House cited a scheduling conflict, with President Trump meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the afternoon of the game. News articles at the time speculated that Trump, who won just 4% of the vote in the district in 2016, likely would have been booed at Nationals Park.
And in fact, during Game 5 of the 2019 World Series, his only appearance as a president at a ballpark, he was loudly booed when his image appeared on the video screen. A few days before the game, the Nationals confirmed that President Trump would not throw the ceremonial first pitch, but the president offered an unusual reason. “They made me wear a lot of heavy armor,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to the body armor that other presidents have worn in the field. “It makes it look heavy. I don't like it.”
“Even though Mr. Trump was a baseball player in high school, he was reluctant to throw out the first pitch in public, which gave me the impression that he was reluctant to raise his voice and vote for the people.” quipped John Thorne, Major League Baseball's official historian.
After Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 election, the Nationals quickly saw an opportunity to revive the ritual.
“We look forward to welcoming President-elect Biden on opening day of the 2021 season.” The team tweeted on November 7, 2020, after the Washington Post and other media organizations called the race for him. “Excited to continue the long-standing tradition of a sitting president throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at the home of our national pastime in our nation's capital,” the tweet said.Biden and his wife Jill at the Nats game. It also included a photo of her smiling.
But on the eve of the start of the 2021 season, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden had no intention of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch. He added, “I know the president wants to be at Nationals Stadium. There's going to be a lot of great days and a lot of great baseball games this spring.” Later that season, it was Psaki, not Biden, who threw out the first pitch in a game.
The Nats announced that former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who was instrumental in bringing baseball back to the city, will throw out the first pitch at Monday's home opener.
The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment on why Biden will not pitch at Nationals Park during his term.
Throughout the 20th century, the event known as “Presidential Opening Day” had a holiday-like feel. For most of this century, Washington had an American League team called the Senators, which typically opened its season a day earlier than other leagues. Congress will adjourn early, allowing lawmakers to arrive in time at the old Griffith Stadium at 7th Street and Florida Avenue NW.
It started when Taft tossed the ball to Senators pitcher Walter Johnson in the 1910 season opener, and Johnson pitched a one-hit shutout victory that afternoon. But Thorne says William McKinley squandered his chance to become the first president to accomplish that. In a 2014 blog post, Thorne wrote that when McKinley greeted members of the Washington team at the White House in April 1897, the coach had thrown the first pitch in Columbus five years earlier, when McKinley was governor of Ohio. He wrote that he remembered having the ceremony.
“McKinley reportedly smiled and replied that he did remember the incident well and that if his path was cleared, he would repeat his performance at National Park in Thursday's National League opener against Brooklyn.'' ,” Thorne wrote. “But he did not do so, so the presidential honor of throwing the first ball of the season had to wait for the appearance of William Howard Taft.”
McKinley's successor, Teddy Roosevelt, was unsuited to the role. He hated baseball, deriding it as “Morikodol.'' “Game” – an old word meaning spoiled or overprotective.
Thus the honor fell to Taft. In an interview, Mr. Thorne called Mr. Taft “an accidental first.”
And it might have been a one-off had it not been for the marketing savvy of Clark Griffith, who became manager and part-owner of the Senators in 1912.
“It occurred to me that this would make a great annual tradition,” Griffith wrote in the Washington Star in 1955. An article titled “The President Who Pitched for Me.”
So he requested a meeting with Taft. “I told him, 'I would like to establish this as an annual event, and if you would help, it might spread,'” Griffith wrote.
“That's true, Griff. According to Griffith's testimony, Mr. Taft responded that he would be happy to get the ball rolling.
Today, fans are accustomed to seeing presidents and other celebrities throw out the first pitch from near the mound. But in the old days, presidents would throw from a box in the stands. And instead of throwing to a specific player, a new routine evolved. He throws the ball and goes to grab it to players from both teams. The winning player brings the ball to the first fan for an autograph.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served for 12 years, set a record by tossing eight times on opening day. The tradition was interrupted during World War II, but was then followed by Harry S. Truman, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch in September 1945, less than a week after Japan's surrender was officially confirmed. It has been restarted. His appearance at the ballpark helped signal to the American public that things were returning to normal.
Before television became popular in America, baseball was undoubtedly America's sport. And that helped strengthen the relationship between sports and the president, Thorne noted.
“It was easy for FDR and Truman to become part of the baseball world,” Thorne said. “So it wasn't just that the president had dignity in the game. It was that the game was conducted in accordance with the dignity of the president.”
But not always. At the 1951 home opener, Truman was booed. He had fired General Douglas MacArthur less than two weeks later, and the day before the game, the popular military man delivered his famous line to a joint session of Congress: “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” He gave a speech including. The U.S. Air Force Band played “Ruffles and Flourish” and “Long Live the Chief” to drown out the boos. The Washington Evening Star called the fans' reaction “the most callous response a CEO has ever received at a baseball opening game.''
Truman's successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, infuriated Washington when he missed the 1953 Opening Day, his first as president, and went golfing in Augusta, Georgia. The game was rained out and Ike was forced to take a mulligan, so he returned to Washington to attend the game. His baseball duties. He then exited after one and a half innings and returned to his golf trip.
“Even though he was a war hero, he was so thoroughly watered down by the American media that he never made that mistake again,” said author Smith. He also teaches public speaking and presidential oratory as a senior English lecturer at the university. University of Rochester. “Basically, even if it looks like someone is breaking tradition, there is a precedent for it to flip quickly.”
In 1961, Chicago White Sox outfielder Jim Rivera, known as “Jungle,” caught President John F. Kennedy's toss and brought it for his autograph, but he was not satisfied with Kennedy's handwriting. . According to a Chicago Tribune article years later, Rivera told JFK:
“What kind of garbage university is Harvard, one that doesn't even teach you how to write?” What kind of garbage is this? What is this garbage sign? Do you think you could go to a pub on the South Side of Chicago and say the president of the United States really signed this baseball for you? You'd get away with it. ”
Even as Secret Service agents tried to shoo him away, the enraged player demanded, “Take this back and give me something other than a garbage autograph.” According to the newspaper, John F. Kennedy responded with a laugh and signed “a very ordinary letter.” “Even a first grader could read it.'' Rivera was satisfied and told the president, “It's okay.''
When Nixon appeared at Washington's home opener in 1969, his first year in office, he was excited to see his friend Ted Williams, who was making his managerial debut with the Senators. Despite their mutual admiration, Williams' jockey couldn't help but grin when Nixon dropped one of the two ceremonial balls he was scheduled to throw that afternoon. Ta.
This was not the only blow to Mr. Nixon's pride. The presidential seal on the front of his box had an embarrassing typo that read “President of the United States.”
Still, Nixon, a big baseball fan, stayed throughout the game. The Senators lost 8-4 to the Yankees and were eliminated.
When baseball left Washington, D.C., the Washington tradition was put on hold, and Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton threw out the first pitch in Baltimore instead. But it would have seemed natural for Trump and Biden to follow in the footsteps of Bush and Obama by showing up at Nationals Park.
Both candidates had experience throwing the first pitch before becoming president. For example, Mr. Trump ceremonial toss at Fenway Park Before a game between the Boston Red Sox and President Trump's favorite team, the New York Yankees, in 2006. In 2009, then-Vice President Biden threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the opening game between the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees.
But given their advanced ages, and the possibility that Mr. Trump will be booed by an unfriendly blue crowd in Washington, it seems doubtful that either man will change course in a second term. is. That means the president's enduring tradition could be on hold for at least four more years.
