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It's April 14th, 1910. And

1:09

another remarkable event is about

1:11

to be uncovered by Aria,

1:13

Rebecca and Ali. The Retrospectors.

1:16

When attending public sporting events was still

1:18

used, he was a bit undignified for

1:20

a president, William Howard Tufts' appearance at

1:22

the Washington Senators game on Opening Day

1:24

of the Baseball League, today in history

1:26

in 1910 was a big deal. So

1:28

much so that the senator's manager, Jimmy

1:30

Macaulay, offered him the honour of being

1:32

the first president to throw a ceremonial

1:34

first pitch. And according to an AP

1:36

account from the time, the president took

1:38

the ball in his gloved hand as

1:40

if he were at a loss as

1:42

to what to what to do with

1:44

it. Until the umpire. called him and

1:46

he was expected to throw it over

1:48

the plate. Taft and the others

1:50

in the presidential party, which included

1:52

Vice President James S. Sherman, stayed

1:54

for the entire game, even after

1:57

a line drive by Philadelphia's Frank

1:59

home run. bounced off Secretary of

2:01

the Senate Charles G. Bennet's head. Even

2:03

so they stayed under the end of

2:05

the game. The president apparently enjoyed the

2:07

game according to reports. Mr. Taft was

2:10

as interested as all the rest, the

2:12

Associated Press wrote, he knows baseball thoroughly

2:14

and is up on all the finer

2:16

points of the game. I mean it's

2:18

kind of amazing because it's then a

2:20

tradition. This idea of the US president

2:23

throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on

2:25

opening day. that has continued with some

2:27

exceptions we'll get to those for over

2:29

a hundred years and therefore it's really

2:31

important not just because it's an annual

2:33

tradition that stretches over a hundred years

2:36

which in the United States of America

2:38

makes it quite a long-standing tradition anyway

2:40

but also because it links together baseball

2:42

and the president and you know baseball

2:44

is the national sport of the United

2:47

States isn't it there is nothing similar

2:49

to this in basketball or football no

2:51

matter how popular those are you know

2:53

the president doesn't come on and do

2:55

a dance in the Super Bowl half-time

2:57

show so that would be great it

3:00

would be good and I do think

3:02

that's really important because as we've documented

3:04

in previous episodes in this era There

3:06

were reputational risks to getting involved in

3:08

baseball. It was a bit of a

3:10

dodgy sport. Yeah, Benjamin Harrison had been

3:13

the first president to attend a baseball

3:15

game, but Taft was only the second.

3:17

You know, it wasn't considered something that

3:19

a president would necessarily want to be

3:21

seen doing. It was associated with attracting

3:24

people of all classes, and that was

3:26

a dangerous place for a president to

3:28

be seen. You know, baseball had taken

3:30

off as a professional sport. right after

3:32

the US Civil War really. It was,

3:34

you know, a cheap and easy sport

3:37

to get a team going, you know,

3:39

towns, social clubs, companies, you often had

3:41

their own teams. And it was by

3:43

this point certainly the American sport, far

3:45

ahead at this point of American football

3:47

in terms of popularity. An opening day

3:50

of the baseball season was a massive

3:52

event in the national calendar in a

3:54

way that it really isn't now. You

3:56

know, this all changed in the 1960

3:58

in the 1960, to all football games

4:00

being televised. Baseball was a far less

4:03

visually thrilling spectacle. In fact, many fans

4:05

were perfectly happy, even in the 1960s,

4:07

listening on the radio, even when TVs

4:09

became commonplace. Football had that more thrilling

4:11

spectacle. And by the end of the

4:14

60s, football had permanently overtaken baseball as

4:16

the most followed sport in the country.

4:18

But at this point, it was the

4:20

American game, and it was seen as

4:22

quintessentially American. But starting to shed its

4:24

reputation as being a little bit roughy-tuffty,

4:27

mostly because some of the major star.

4:29

came from rural backgrounds and this was

4:31

a time when cities were being seen

4:33

as dangerous places, you know, dirty, crime-ridden,

4:35

filled with alien immigrant groups who might

4:37

be a bit scary to middle class

4:40

Americans, whereas baseball stars were starting to

4:42

be seen as embodying Apple Pie American

4:44

values. Yeah, but still just under the

4:46

surface, you know, the people that were

4:48

involved in those city structures were the

4:50

people who were gambling and organizing a

4:53

lot of the games, you know, Italians,

4:55

gamblers, mafia, not the people that you'd

4:57

want your Waspy president to be associated

4:59

with in 1910. And that's probably why

5:01

the Senator's owner Clark Griffith had wanted

5:04

a US president to throw out a

5:06

first pitch for some years before this

5:08

actually happened. According to Baseball Almanac in

5:10

2003, in President William Howard Taft, Griffith

5:12

found a genuine sports fan and willing,

5:14

if unaware, participant, in an ingenious public

5:17

relations move. And that's exactly what this

5:19

was, you know, by convincing Taft to

5:21

throw out this ceremonial first pitch of

5:23

the season, Griffith was hoping to... to

5:25

permanently fix the presidential seal of approval

5:27

on the sport of baseball as the

5:30

national pastime. And, by the way, it

5:32

was really good for TAF too, because

5:34

following the game, sports writers became fans

5:36

of the president and his enthusiasm for

5:38

baseball. So it had this kind of

5:40

happy feedback loop that like he boosted

5:43

the game and the game boosted him.

5:45

The evening star of DC that said

5:47

that people were reveling in TAFT's fandom.

5:49

not an athlete. I mean actually PRTES,

5:51

associating any sport with him actually probably

5:54

was a pretty wise move. Yeah this

5:56

was not a sort of brachabama type

5:58

figure. This is someone, look at a

6:00

picture of Taft, he's very fat, he's

6:02

got a big moustache, he looks like

6:04

a Victorian ringmaster. Yeah, he weighed 300

6:07

pounds and the description of him throwing

6:09

the pitch does imply that he wasn't

6:11

necessarily in the world's most natural athlete.

6:13

He quote, Rose pulled his Darby hat

6:15

well down on his head, gave his

6:17

blue-surge trousers and extra hitch, gathered himself

6:20

and after a slight pause, threw the

6:22

ball. And it's worth saying as well

6:24

that he wasn't throwing it from the

6:26

pitchers mound, where you see the president

6:28

throwing it in the modern area, he

6:30

was throwing it from the grandstands. He

6:33

was an honoured guest. It was Ronald

6:35

Reagan who was the first president to

6:37

actually get down on the pitch and

6:39

throw from the pitchers mound. And this

6:41

is where it all starts going wrong,

6:44

isn't it? They all start one-uping each

6:46

other. George H. W. Bush then was

6:48

the first president to take the hill

6:50

and throw an actual pitch. And then

6:52

you just have this issue where president

6:54

after president is trying to show their

6:57

sportsmanship rather than being the fat guy

6:59

in the stands. Suddenly then it becomes

7:01

about look at me. I'm on the

7:03

field with these sports stars. Think of

7:05

me. Well I mean Taft evidently enjoyed

7:07

it so much just by not being

7:10

a natural pitcher. He came back and

7:12

through the opening pitch at the senators

7:14

first game the following year which cemented

7:16

it as this annual tradition. So for

7:18

the next 100 years every president would

7:21

throw a ceremonial first pitch on opening

7:23

day except Jimmy Carter who saved his...

7:25

for the World Series, which takes place

7:27

after the end of the season. Franklin

7:29

D. Roosevelt holds the record for the

7:31

most presidential first pitches, managing to cram

7:34

in 11, a record which can never

7:36

be beaten, because the rule was brought

7:38

in after his death that limits presidents

7:40

to two terms. He served three terms,

7:42

which means no one is ever going

7:44

to be able to beat that record.

7:47

So the first president to not do

7:49

this at all, literally not play ball,

7:51

was Donald Trump. And I can't help

7:53

thinking that that might be because Barack

7:55

Obama, his predecessor, was booed by crowds

7:57

when he opened a game in 2000.

8:00

2009. And also did quite a bad

8:02

throw, Rebecca, you were saying? Yeah, his

8:04

throw absolutely sucked. He was also

8:06

wearing a white socks cap. He's

8:08

a white socks fan at a

8:10

Washington Nationals game. I mean, that

8:12

was, I imagine, a PR stunt

8:14

designed so that when he was

8:16

booed by the crowd, everyone could

8:18

say, oh look, he was playing

8:20

along, he was taunting them by

8:22

wearing a rival cap. They definitely

8:24

weren't booing him because they don't

8:26

like him as the president. he

8:28

wasn't the first president to be

8:30

booed by far you know Herbert

8:32

Hoover was booed repeatedly when he was

8:35

doing his throws during the prohibition era

8:37

he was met with chance of we

8:39

want beer in 1937 during one of

8:41

FDR's 11 pitches a plane flew over

8:43

the stadium with a banner that said

8:45

play the game, don't pack the court,

8:47

a reference to his plan at the

8:50

time to expand the Supreme Court. I

8:52

mean, sometimes presidents weren't even safer being

8:54

confronted by the players on the pitch.

8:56

The Los Angeles Angels catcher Jeff Torborg

8:58

recalled a conversation with President Nixon while

9:00

he was preparing to receive his presidential

9:02

pitch in 1973. He said, we're making small

9:05

talk and I said, I guess your job

9:07

is like an umpires. You can't please everybody.

9:09

And Nixon said. I didn't think ball players

9:11

thought about anything but their batting averages. So

9:13

I said, well come to think of it,

9:15

I wasn't too pleased when you canned the

9:17

Peace Corps. The conversation didn't go much

9:19

after that. Well if a bombers was

9:21

regarded as one of the worst pitches,

9:24

George W. Bush delivered one of the

9:26

best. He had actually already done a

9:28

pretty poor one when he bounced his

9:31

first pitch on opening day at Miller

9:33

Park in Milwaukee in 2001. But in

9:35

October 30, game three of the World

9:37

Series at Yankee Stadium, six weeks after

9:40

9-11. he was going to deliver another

9:42

one. I mean he's got the crowd

9:44

on side then to be fair. You

9:47

definitely but you'd also want to get

9:49

this one right. He was preparing by throwing

9:51

with his press secretary Ari Fleisher on the

9:53

south lawn and then he came out onto

9:55

the field wearing an FDNY jacket. He waved

9:57

to the crowd and strode to the mouth.

10:00

and once he was there he gave

10:02

a thumbs up and quickly went into

10:04

his delivery and threw a perfect strike

10:06

with pace to the Yankees catcher Todd

10:08

Green. He later said it was by

10:10

far the most nervous moment of my

10:12

presidency because it was him coming out

10:15

after 9-11 doing the most American thing

10:17

in the most American forum possible. There

10:19

are a few reasons why it seems

10:21

to have died out. You know we've

10:23

talked about Trump not doing it. There

10:25

was a strange moment where Trump spontaneously

10:28

announced that he was going to do

10:30

the first... pitch for the Yankees, something

10:32

which had not. A strange spontaneous

10:35

moment around Donald Trump, surely not.

10:37

And Joe Biden resisted pressure to do

10:39

it as president, although he did do

10:41

it as VP in 2009. Also it's

10:43

just become less special because loads of

10:45

games in baseball all over the country

10:48

start with a celebrity, often a local

10:50

dignitary throwing the opening ball. So it

10:52

was so successful as an idea, even

10:54

though the idea was to bolster the

10:56

presidential one as the pinnacle of this

10:58

meme, that now you're kind of... I

11:00

think if your president, like, do I

11:02

want to do what, you know, Victoria

11:04

Beckham did last week, I don't know

11:07

if I do. Ritchie Sunak turned down

11:09

the opportunity to do it in 2023

11:11

at a game of the

11:13

Washington Nationals versus the Arizona

11:15

Diamondbacks. Although he was cuddled

11:17

by their mascot, Screech. What

11:19

uncuddly name? Well, Sunak. This

11:21

episode first aired last year

11:23

exclusively to members of club

11:25

retrospectors. Join today and unlock

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a new episode this Sunday.

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