It was just a normal Wednesday night of youth baseball in Cape St. Claire near Annapolis. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani hung on the backstop, cheering the teams, and ex-Gov. Robert Ehrlich stood behind the plate, part coach, part umpire and part dad, with 7-year-old son Drew, 7, playing right-center field for the Raptors.
“I guess he couldn?t find quality baseball in New York,” Ehrlich joked.
The presidential candidate and the ex-governor were there to fill some time before a fundraiser at the posh Severn River home of local commercial developer Edward St. John. Ehrlich is mid-Atlantic region chair of Giuliani?s campaign.
When asked if baseball games were a standard part of his campaign schedule, Giuliani laughed and said they had very good games in New Hampshire, where he had just visited. He said he used to play Little League himself but had forgotten how small the players were.
The reception at the home raised “over $200,000,” said Dick Hug, Ehrlich?s prodigious fundraiser who is filling a similar role for Giuliani. “We had a very nice group of people,” which Hug estimated at about 150, and they showed “a lot of enthusiasm for Rudy Giuliani.”
“I?m pleased with the progress of the campaign,” Giuliani told reporters, after spending about 30 minutes at the game bantering with Ehrlich and the players. Now that the primaries have been moved up, they need to raise more money.
“It?s a marathon,” Giuliani said.
Ehrlich and Giuliani have a relationship that goes back before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that made the ex-mayor a national figure.
“He?s done everything I?ve asked him to do,” Ehrlich said of Giuliani, who campaigned for Ehrlich in both2002 and 2006.
“I?m so proud of him,” Giuliani said of Ehrlich?s record as governor.
