Mrs. Hemingway is off to the Washington Nationals home opener today, meanwhile I’m stuck toiling in the Examiner salt mines on a gorgeous spring day in Washington. But if you’re excited about the return of baseball and a political junkie, you could do a lot worse than read the always enjoyable Carl Cannon on Presidents and baseball:
But baseball’s place in the nation’s psyche was no myth, either, and from our country’s earliest days U.S. presidents kept abreast of the nation’s pulse by embracing the uniquely American game.
And I do mean the earliest days. According to a French officer attached to the Continental Army, George Washington played catch with aides de camp for hours at a time while bivouacked at Valley Forge. There, General Washington also watched his troops play an early version of the sport that they called “fives.” (No, the game was not “invented” by a Civil War officer named Abner Doubleday.) In fact, during that awful war, Abraham Lincoln would go out into the fields we now know as the South Lawn to take his turn at bat with the boys who played there. It was said that Lincoln could hit the ball a mile.
And I do mean the earliest days. According to a French officer attached to the Continental Army, George Washington played catch with aides de camp for hours at a time while bivouacked at Valley Forge. There, General Washington also watched his troops play an early version of the sport that they called “fives.” (No, the game was not “invented” by a Civil War officer named Abner Doubleday.) In fact, during that awful war, Abraham Lincoln would go out into the fields we now know as the South Lawn to take his turn at bat with the boys who played there. It was said that Lincoln could hit the ball a mile.
Read the whole thing.
