Despite what you may have heard, I was not on hand when President Taft threw out the first ball on Opening Day, April 14, 1910. I missed my streetcar that morning.
I did see a couple of Opening Days in Washington, pre-2005: 1963, when President Kennedy threw out the first ball, and 1968 when Vice President Hubert Humphrey did the honors. In those days, the President threw the ball from his box adjacent to the Senators’ dugout, and the players all lined up to try and catch it and get it signed. More recently, the Chief Executive goes out on the mound — or stands in front of it — and throws it to the home team’s catcher.
Opening Day was a weekday, and it was always interesting to see how the school kids whose fathers had tickets managed to leave school so early. I think in my case we used a dental appointment as an excuse, but I have to think the various school administrations in the area knew exactly what was going on.
The Orioles were able to entice a few presidents to Baltimore to throw out first balls, and I saw most, if not all, of those. Then when the Nats arrived in 2005, I saw Bush 43 make the toss at RFK.
President Obama’s appearance at Nats Park on Monday will be particularly significant. Politics aside, it’s a Jackie Robinson-esque moment, and I wouldn’t miss it. It’s disappointing that it’s not being televised nationally. The Nationals’ players have virtually all expressed a desire to shake the President’s hand.
One Opening Day story told by my pal Lou Sleater, a lefty who pitched with the Senators in 1952, and was there in uniform for the opener in 1953: President Eisenhower announced that he was going to miss the presidential opener in order to play golf in Georgia — Eisenhower went golfing about 400 times during his presidency — and the Washington Times-Herald sent their “Inquiring Camera Girl” to Griffith Stadium during a day-before workout to ask the players what they thought about it.
The players were only too happy to oblige the young lady, who was quite attractive and personable, and some of the single ones asked for her phone number. Sorry, she said, she was engaged to a real Senator.
The politician was Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy … and the young lady’s name was Jacqueline Bouvier.
As luck would have it, the game was rained out, and Eisenhower was able to make it after all when they finally did play the opener, a 6-3 loss to the Yankees. Outfielder Ken Wood — no relation — caught the first pitch and went oh-for-four.
And now you know the rest of the story, with apologies to the late Paul Harvey.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at philwood@
washingtonexaminer.com.
