The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House
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 the "most American" sport--baseball--and the U.S. presidency. Smith, who USA Today has called "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting," begins 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. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Joe Biden, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Woodrow Wilson, buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic Franklin Roosevelt, saving baseball in World War II; Jimmy Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; and George H. W. Bush, who explained, "Baseball has everything." The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America's leaders have treated baseball. From William Howard Taft, the first president to throw the "first pitch" on Opening Day in 1910, to Barack Obama's "Go [White] Sox!" scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport.
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The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House
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 the "most American" sport--baseball--and the U.S. presidency. Smith, who USA Today has called "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting," begins 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. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Joe Biden, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Woodrow Wilson, buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic Franklin Roosevelt, saving baseball in World War II; Jimmy Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; and George H. W. Bush, who explained, "Baseball has everything." The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America's leaders have treated baseball. From William Howard Taft, the first president to throw the "first pitch" on Opening Day in 1910, to Barack Obama's "Go [White] Sox!" scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport.
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The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House
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 the "most American" sport--baseball--and the U.S. presidency. Smith, who USA Today has called "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting," begins 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. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Joe Biden, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Woodrow Wilson, buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic Franklin Roosevelt, saving baseball in World War II; Jimmy Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; and George H. W. Bush, who explained, "Baseball has everything." The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America's leaders have treated baseball. From William Howard Taft, the first president to throw the "first pitch" on Opening Day in 1910, to Barack Obama's "Go [White] Sox!" scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport.
Curt Smith is the author of eighteen books, including George H. W. Bush: Character at the Core (Potomac, 2014); Memories at the Microphone: A Century of Baseball Broadcasting; and Voices of The Game, named by Esquire magazine among "the 100 Best Baseball Books Ever Written." A senior lecturer of English at the University of Rochester, Smith has addressed the White House Historical Association, hosted the "Voices of The Game" series at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and 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
