Play Ball! From Taft to Obama

Good morning. It’s April 1, and you’ll find no April Fools’ Day jokes here because of the arrival of Opening Day, an unofficial holiday that ranks for some of us just below Christmas morning.

Last night - on Christmas Eve, if you will - the Houston Astros celebrated their switch to the American League by defeating the Texas Rangers, a team once owned by former relief pitcher "Georgie" Bush. Today, action breaks out in other major league ballparks, including here in Washington, where the ritual of spring often entails cherry blossoms and blooming daffodils, perfect weather, and the president of the United States tossing out the first pitch.

“Play Ball!”

True, the current president’s passion is basketball, not baseball. If he had his druthers, the man who helped Punahou School rule Hawaii’s high school hardwood in 1979 as “Barry” Obama would rather toss the opening jump ball at next week’s Final Four. No such tradition exists in college hoops, but it must be said that Barack Obama has dutifully thrown his share of ceremonial first pitches.

The first president to do so was William Howard Taft, who started the tradition more than a century ago at Washington Senators games. This season, Taft will be honored, if you want to call it that, by being represented in the Presidents Race at Nationals Park.

It was mid-April – the season was shorter back then – that the Big Man in the Oval Office met the Big Train. The big man was President Taft, who went about 300 pounds. The Big Train was Washington Senators pitching ace Walter Johnson, who could throw the ball nearly 100 miles per hour.

On April 14, 1910, Taft lobbed out the ceremonial first pitch to Johnson, who wasn’t expected it – but who caught the ball anyway. The Big Train then took the mound and mowed down the Philadelphia Phillies. The visiting team managed only one hit, and that was a ball dropped by Senators’ right-fielder Doc Gessler after he got entwined with a fan in the roped-off outfield.

So Walter Johnson’s Opening Day one-hitter should have been a no-hitter, but he wasn’t the type to ever complain. After the game, Johnson he wrote the president a letter, asking if Taft would autograph the ball he threw out – and give it to him. The president graciously obliged.

Fast-forward 99 years, and President Obama is on the mound in St. Louis to throw the ceremonial first pitch at major league baseball’s All-Star Game. To make sure the crowd behaves appropriately, MLB arranges to have Stan Musial – the best and most popular St. Louis Cardinal in history - driven in a golf cart to hand the president the baseball.

Two years later, at the White House, Obama returns the favor, presenting “Stan the Man” the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award. In a time of decreasing faith in heroes and institutions, Obama praises Musial as “untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”

Stan Musial passed away this off-season at age 92, leaving behind only fond memories from fans, teammates, and former rivals alike. Out of respect and affection for "Stan the Man," Albert Pujols eschewed the nickname “El Hombre” when he played in St. Louis. Willie Mays noted that he never heard anyone utter a bad word about Musial. And those who attend baseball games in St. Louis still walk past his statue with its famous description of Musial as “baseball’s perfect knight.”

But others knights will come, some of them this season, perhaps here in the nation’s capital. Spring is here, the great game of baseball lives on.