Balking at the First Pitch

Among the dozen commanders in chief who have tossed out the ceremonial first pitch is Warren G. Harding, who opened the Washington Senators' 1921 baseball season, continuing a presidential tradition begun 11 years earlier. (1921 Associated Press Photo)

"Baseball and politicians loved to wrap themselves in each other's cloaks," Odell said.

As baseball basked in the presidential glow, "the ballpark in those days was one place where the president could go out, and you weren't a Democrat or a Republican," Odell said. "You were just a good old baseball fan like everyone else. It was a tie to the common man. It was a tie to the common culture. It was where the focus of America was -- on baseball."

FDR, who steered clear of first-ball festivities during the war, died a week before Washington's April 20, 1945, home opener. The new president, Harry S. Truman, an avid fan, stayed away from that wartime Opening Day, although he did throw out first balls at Washington openers in 1951 and '52, during the Korean War.

So did Eisenhower, on April 16, 1953, as the fighting continued overseas. But Ike's attention wasn't focused on baseball that spring. His mind was on golf.

Before rain in Washington forced a postponement, Opening Day had been set for April 13. Ike was in Georgia that week, teeing off at Augusta National Golf Club, where one of his playing partners, Ben Hogan, had just won the Masters tournament. The president's choice of golf over the national pastime had "aroused considerable criticism in some sports circles," the United Press reported, meaning columnists were ripping him.

"I would like to see his first love be baseball," said Warren C. Giles, president of the National League. "But I think he's entitled to do what he wants these days."

Eisenhower finally "yielded to terrific sports pressure," as the papers put it, and announced he would throw out the first ball. Senators President Clark C. Griffith was "tickled to death," saying his players were fired up to "go out and lick the Yankees."

"They're used to playing to the president," Griffith said.

They lost that afternoon but won in 1959, when Ike again chose to play Augusta on Washington's Opening Day. He heard little if any criticism. Maybe baseball was beginning to lose its hold on the nation. When President Lyndon B. Johnson missed the Senators' home opener in 1966, not wanting to interrupt his Easter vacation in Texas, the press hardly noticed.

And then the decade came unhinged, and nothing was the same. Mired in Vietnam, the president heard the chants rising. Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today? The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. fell April 4, 1968, cut down in Memphis four days before the Senators' scheduled home opener. The Washington riot fires weren't all out when the game was finally played on the 10th. Johnson stayed home, safe in the White House, troops from the 3rd Infantry patrolling the perimeter.

He'd already announced he wasn't running again.

And in the end, there was Nixon: He missed the Senators' Opening Day festivities in 1970, arriving at the ballpark in the fifth inning, after sweating out a key congressional vote. And he missed all of the final home opener, April 5, 1971, before the team played out its season and moved away. Like Bush today, Nixon had meetings that afternoon.

He was in trouble.

Polls showed his approval ratings had dropped to a new low. A majority of Americans felt he wasn't being truthful about an unpopular war.

A massacre of civilians by U.S. troops had inflamed opposition to the conflict. The president called the atrocity an aberration, lauding U.S. soldiers for their courage and sacrifice and urging the country to support them.

Democrats wanted a complete military withdrawal, but the president refused to set a timetable. To do so, he said, would embolden the enemy and undermine U.S. commanders in the field.

Anyway, he was busy.

So they played the game without him: WAS 8, OAK 0