The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smith’s extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between baseball, the “most American” sport, and the U.S. presidency. Smith, who USA TODAY calls “America’s voice of authority on baseball broadcasting,” starts before America’s birth, when would‑be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as America’s pastime in the nineteenth century, such presidents as Lincoln and Johnson playing town ball or giving employees time off to watch. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Wilson buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic FDR saving baseball in World War II; Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; Reagan, airing baseball on radio that he never saw—by “re-creation.” George H. W. Bush, for whom Smith wrote, explains, “Baseball has everything.” Smith, having interviewed a majority of presidents since Richard Nixon, shares personal stories on each. Throughout, The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America’s leaders have treated baseball. From Taft as the first president to throw the “first pitch” on Opening Day in 1910 to Obama’s “Go Sox!” scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport, enriching both their office and the nation. Purchase the audio edition.
Curt Smith is the author of seventeen books, including the classic history of baseball broadcasting, Voices of The Game. His other books include: Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story (Potomac Books, 2009), Mercy! A Celebration of Fenway Park’s Centennial (Potomac Books, 2012), and most recently, George H. W. Bush: Character at the Core (Potomac Books, 2014). Smith is a senior lecturer of English at the University of Rochester, a Gate House Media columnist, and a contributor to publications from Newsweek to the New York Times. The host of the “Voices of The Game” series at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, he has been named to the Judson Welliver Society of former presidential speechwriters.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Beginnings: 1700s to Theodore Roosevelt, 1901–1909 2. Power of Two: William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, 1909–1921 3. Triple Play: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, 1921–1933 4. “The Champ”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933–1945 5. The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman, 1945–1953 6. “From the Heart of America”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953–1961 7. “The First Irish Brahmin”: John F. Kennedy, 1961–1963 8. Larger Than Life: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–1969 9. Nixon’s the One: Richard Nixon, 1969–1974 10. “Friendship, a Perfect Blendship!”: Gerald Ford, 1974–1977 11. From Softball to Hardball: Jimmy Carter, 1977–1981 12. The Gipper: Ronald Reagan, 1981–1989 13. The Baseball Lifer: George H. W. Bush, 1989–1993 14. Our Man Bill: William Jefferson Clinton, 1993–2001 15. W.: George W. Bush, 2001–2009 16. The Pioneer: Barack Obama, 2009–2017 17. The Donald and the Game: Donald Trump, 2017– Bibliography Index
