Using the Presidency to teach U.S. History: The Presidential “First Pitch”

Using the Presidency to teach U.S. History:

The Presidential “First Pitch”

Unionist candidate John Bell: “It appears to me very singular that we three should strike “foul” and be “put out” while old Abe made such a “good lick.”

Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas: “That’s because he had that confounded rail to strike with. I thought our fusion would be a “short stop” to his career.”

Southern Democrat John Breckenridge: “I guess I’d better leave for Kentucky, for I smell something strong around here and begin to think that we are completely “skunked.”

Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln: “Gentlemen, if any of you should ever take a hand at another match at this game, remember that you must have a “good bat” and strike a “fair ball” to make a “clean score” & a “home run.”

President Theodore Roosevelt thought baseball a “mollycoddle” game. He preferred American football

and boxing as more “manly.”

President Taft throws outthe first presidentialfirst pitch in the USA,

14 April 1910.

This was President Wilson’s third “first pitch.”

Baseball consciously exploits a connection with patriotism. This September 1917 World Series scorecard uses an April 1916 photo of President Wilson.

Griffith StadiumWashington D.C. 1924:

Photographers crowd to recordPresident Calvin Coolidge’s

“First Pitch”

The Coolidge “first pitch” the photographers crowded to depict.

FDR at Griffith Stadium on Opening Day 1940