At 8:02 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, 1981, the Pawtucket (Rhode Island) Red Sox and the Rochester (New York) Red Wings began a Triple-A International League game that would run until 4:09 the following morning—Easter Sunday, as it happened—when umpires suspended the game at the end of the 32nd inning, with the score tied 2–2 and 19 fans remaining in McCoy Stadium. Taken up again on June 23, the next time the teams met in Pawtucket, it was resolved in 18 minutes and one inning, 3–2 in favor of the Red Sox. With a total running time of eight hours and 25 minutes, the game remains the longest professional baseball game on record.

- “The Longest Game” [introduction], Boston College Magazine

Photo: National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum

Batting sixth for Pawtucket? Wade Boggs

Batting third for Rochester? Cal Ripken

It’s Jackie Robinson Day! The 66th anniversary of the breaking of baseball’s color barrier by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ rookie. (Jackie went 1-3 with 11 putouts at first base against the Boston Braves.) For today’s WTW I will rank the games, per usual, and where relevant I will list a team’s first black player and the date they played their first game:

1) Rays at Red Sox, 11:05 EDT - Not a typo, it’s Patriots’ Day in Boston so it’s an early start time. (Embarrassingly the Sox were the last to integrate when Pumpsie Green took the field on July 21, 1959 - 12 years after the Dodgers.)

2) Mets at Rockies, 6:40 MDT - Before you scoff, the Mets are 7-4 and the Rockies are 8-4. All expansion teams were integrated when they entered the league.

3) Padres at Dodgers, 7:10 PDT - Because the Dodgers are Robinson’s team they get top three billing. (Although they should be forced to play a day game.)

4) Cardinals at Pirates, 7:05 EDT - The Pirates have won five of their last six including a sweep of the Reds. They are one game behind the first place Cardinals. (In a great coincidence the Cards and Bucs integrated on the same date, April 13, 1954, against different teams. The Pirates had second baseman Curt Roberts. The Cardinals had first baseman Tom Alston.)

5) Astros at A’s, 7:05 PDT - The A’s lost two of three to the Tigers but still have nine wins. The surprising Astros lost two of three to the Angels. (The A’s, then in Philadelphia, integrated on September 13, 1953 when Bob Trice was their starting pitcher.)

6) White Sox at Blue Jays, 7:07 EDT - The White Sox narrowly avoided a sweep against the Indians but are still 1-5 on their current road trip. They face Mark Buehrle who has not pitched well with the Jays. (The first black player on the White Sox was Minnie Minoso who first took the field on May 1, 1951.)

7) TIE

Phillies at Reds, 7:10 EDT - A decent matchup improved by having Cliff Lee throwing for the Phillies. (The Phils were the last NL team to integrate - which if you know their history with Robinson is not a surprise. John Kennedy donned a Phillies uniform for the first time on April 22, 1957. The Reds had two players of color take the field for the first time on April 17, 1954: Nino Escalara and Chuck Harmon.)

Nationals at Marlins, 7:10 EDT - The Nats were swept by the Braves over the weekend. But like a refreshing sorbet during the middle of a fine meal, they face the Marlins to cleanse the palate. (Both teams were integrated upon their formation.)

9) Angels at Twins, 7:10 CDT - Someone had to be last on a mediocre schedule. (The Twins, who were originally the first Washington franchise, integrated with Carlos Paula on September 6, 1954.)

I will do the other franchises tomorrow as Jackie Robinson Day actually extends to Tuesday this year.

juniusworth:

Rare images from EBONY magazine of Jackie Robinson. 

The number of players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Craig Biggio earned 68% of the vote (players need 75%), 39 votes shy of induction.

The last time the BBWAA did not elect a single recently retired player was 1996 when Phil Neikro received 68.3% of the vote. Other years where no player received the necessary 75% were 1971 (Yogi Berra, 67%), 1960 (Edd Roush, 54%), 1958 (Max Carey 51%), 1950 (Mel Ott, 68.5%), 1949 (charlie Gehringer, 67%). (Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com)

obitoftheday:

Obit of the Day (Breaking): Former Baseball Union Head Marvin Miller

Marvin Miller, the man who led the way for baseball free agency (and, in turn, free agency for all other professional sports), has passed away at the age of 95. Miller led the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) beginning with its formation in 1966 until his retirement in 1982.

Miller was a labor economist who had worked with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the United Steelworkers before coming over to assist the major league baseball players. In 1968 he led the first successful collective bargaining agreement with MLB raising the minimum salary of ball players by 67%, from $6,000 to $10,000. Four years later the players struck for the first time - for all of 13 days - earning an increase in pension payments and the addition of arbitration to the collective bargaining agreement.

A year later, Miller partnered with St. Louis Cardinals outfielder, Curt Flood, to fight the decades old “reserve clause.” The clause allowed owners to re-sign players to one-year contracts in perpetuity if they player and team could not come to a salary agreement. It also allowed players to be traded at any time without input or agreement. The Cardinals attempted to trade Flood to the Philadelphia and he refused the trade.

Miller recommended that he sue baseball and Flood did. Flood v. Kuhn (1970) would eventually end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately Flood lost and would never play again but MLB created the “10/5” (aka, The Curt Flood Rule) that allowed players who had played ten seasons, and five with the same team, to veto any trade.

In 1974 Marvin Miller began to make inroads against the reserve clause. First he sued Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley in 1974 for violating the contract of his star pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter. An arbitrator agreed and Hunter became free to sign with any team. Hunter signed a five-year contract for $3.5 million with the NY Yankees - an unheard of sum up to that point.

The following year, Miller encouraged pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally to not re-sign their contract and take MLB to arbitration. After the hearing, the arbitrator decided that both players had fulfilled their contracts and they need not re-sign with their teams. The floodgates to free agency had opened wide.

Miller told the story in Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball that originally every player in MLB would become free agents the following year but owners were so worried about that prospect that they demanded that free agency be limited to certain veterans. Miller was happy to comply because it created a scarcity, which would raise salaries. He was right.

In 1965, the year before Miller joined the MLBPA the average players salary was $14,361 (in 1965 dollars) . When Miller retired in 1982 it was $245,000. For the 2011 season it was $3.1 million.

Famed Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster, Red Barber, called Marvin Miller “one of the two or three most important men in baseball history” after Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.

Sources: MLB Trade Rumors, wikipedia.org, MLB.com, EH.net

(Image of Marvin Miller, right, with Curt Flood, 1970, is copyright of AP and courtesy of ThePoint)

mlboffseason:

Presidential First Pitches, Part I: Taft - JFK

On April 14, 1910, President William Howard Taft threw out the first pitch at Boundary Field as the Washington Senators faced off against eventual World Series champs, the Philadelphia Athletics. Walter Johnson outdueled the pride of Gettysburg College, Eddie Plank, 3-0. Thus began a somewhat erratic tradition of the President of the United States opening the major league baseball season. So how did things turn out? This week we look at the first 9 POTUSes and their roles as harbingers of luck - good or bad.

Note: From 1910 through 1963 all the games involved the Washington Senators: “First in War, First in Peace and Last in the American League.”

Taft, Throws: Right, Career: 2-0
1910 - W, 3-0 vs. Philadelphia
1911 - W, 8-5 vs. Boston

Wilson, Throws: Right, Career: 3-0
1913 - W, 2-1 vs. NY
1914 - No pitch
1915 - W, 7-0 vs. NY
1916 - W, 12-4 vs. NY
Because of WWI and a subsequent stroke Wilson doesn’t throw out anymore pitches.

Harding, Throws: Right, Career: 2-1
1921 - L, 3-6 vs. Boston - the game took 2 hours
1922 - W, 6-5 vs. NY
1923 - W, 2-1 vs. Phil.
Harding died in office in 1923

Coolidge, Throws: Right, Career: 3-1
1924 - W, 4-0 vs. Phil. - Senators win their only World Series that year
1925 - W, 10-1 vs. NY - Lou Gehrig plays RF for the Yankees
1926 - No pitch
1927 - W, 6-2 vs. Phil.
1928 - L, 5-7 vs, Boston

Hoover, Throws: Right, Career: 1-3
1929 - L, 4-13 vs. Phil.
1930 - L, 3-4 vs. Boston
1931 - L, 3-5 (11 inn.) vs. Phil. - Future HOFer Lefty Grove pitches 9th-11th for the win
1932 - W, 1-0 vs. Boston

Roosevelt, Throws: Right, Career: 5-3
1933 - W, 4-1 vs. Phil.
1934 - W, 6-5 (11) vs. Boston
1935 - W, 4-2 vs. Phil. - Future HOFer Jimmie Foxx plays catcher; caught 109 games in his career
1936 - W, 1-0 vs. NY
1937 - L, 3-4 vs. Phil.
1938 - W, 12-8 vs. Phil. - Brothers Rick Ferrell and Wes Ferrell (HOF) are the battery for the Senators
1939 - No pitch for FDR. Couldn’t find out why.
1940 - L, 0-1 vs. Boston
1941 - L, 0-3 vs. NY
The outbreak of WWII in 1941 and FDR’s death in 1945 end his service on Opening Day.

Truman, Throws: Left, Career: 3-4
1946 - L, 3-6 vs. Boston
1947 - L, 3-9 vs. Boston
1948 - L, 4-12 vs. NY
1949 - W, 3-2 vs. Phil.
1950 - W, 8-7 vs. Phil.
1951 - W, 5-3/W, 8-4 vs. NY - Doubleheader
1952 - L, 0-3 vs. Boston

Eisenhower, Throws: Right, Career: 5-3
1953 - L, 3-6 vs. NY
1954 - W, 5-3 (10) vs. NY
1955 - W, 12-5 vs. Baltimore - 1st time the Senators play a team that’s not NY, Boston or Philly. The Orioles had moved from St. Louis before the 1954 season.
1956 - L, 4-10 vs. NY
1957 - L, 6-7 vs. Balt.
1958 - W, 5-2 vs. Boston
1959 - W, 9-2 vs. Balt.
1960 - W, 10-1 vs. Boston - Senators pitcher Camilo Pascual strikes out 15. Gives up one run - a home run to Ted Williams in his last Opening Day.

Kennedy, Throws: Right, Career: 1-2
1961 - L, 3-4 vs. Chicago - First time facing a team from the Central time zone on Opening Day. This is also the 2nd Washington Senators franchise. The original moved to Minnesota during the offseason to become the Twins.
1962 - W, 4-1 vs. Detroit
1963 - L, 1-3 vs. Baltimore
JFK was assassinated in November 1963.

POTUS record 1910-1963: 25-17

Next week: LBJ - Obama

List of presidential first pitches courtesy of baseball.about.com. Scores and boxscores available from the amazing www.retrosheet.org.

- ə

obitoftheday:

Obit of the Day (Historical): Jackie Robinson (1972)

October 24, 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. There are myriad sources telling of Mr. Robinson’s career and legacy. Obit of the Day will, instead, share some little known facts:

• Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919. He was named for President Theodore Roosevelt who died on January 6 of that year.
• Jackie attended UCLA and was the first student to letter in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track.
• He won the NCAA Long Jump championship in 1940.
• While at UCLA his worst sport was baseball.
• During World War II Robinson enlisted in the Army. In 1944 while serving at Ft. Hood in Waco, Texas he was court martialled for refusing an order to move to the back of a bus because of his race. He was found not guilty.
• Robinson would play one season in the Negro Leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs. According to Robinson, if Branch Rickey of the Dodgers hadn’t recruited him for the majors, he would have quit playing baseball and become a coach at Sam Houston College.
• Robinson was 28 years old when he stepped on the field on April 15, 1947 as the first African American major leaguer in over 60 years. He won the Rookie of the Year award, which is now named for him.
• Here are his stats for his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers which included the 1949 MVP Award as well Brooklyn’s only World Series victory in 1955.
• Jackie played himself in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), his wife was played by Ruby Dee.
• He was traded to the New York Giants, the Dodgers NL rival, after the 1957 season. He never played for the Giants having already signed a contract to work for Chock Full O’ Nuts - a coffee company.
• In 1965 Robinson became the first African Americans sports analyst when he worked on ABC’s Game of the Week.
• Robinson was a Republican, supporting Richard Nixon in the 1960 election as well as Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential and gubernatorial bids. He left the party in 1968 after they failed to support civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
• Robinson’s last public appearance was at game 2 of the 1972 World Series (October 15) where he threw out the first pitch in honor of the 25th anniversary of the integration of baseball. The Cincinnati Reds were playing the Oakland A’s.
• He died at the age of 53 from a heart attack in his home. His eulogy was given by the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
• In 1997 Jackie Robinson became the first, and so far only, player to have his uniform number retired throughout all of baseball. (Wayne Gretzky is the only other professional athlete to earn that honor.)

Family notes:

• Jackie’s brother, Mack Robinson, won the silver medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the 100 meter sprint. Jesse Owens finished first.
• Jackie’s wife, Rachel, was an associate professor of psychiatric nursing at Yale University at the time of Jackie’s death.
• Jackie’s son, Jackie Jr., died in a car accident in 1971. He was only 27.

Sources: NYTimes, jackierobinson.com, Wikipedia, IMDB, The National Archives, baseball-reference.com

(Image is copyright of the Associated Press and courtesy of nabnyc.blogspot.com )

And here’s the trailer for the April 2013 release of the film 42. Yes that’s Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey and Chadwick Boseman as Jackie. Music by Jay-Z.

Now that the ALCS and NLCS are set baseball fans are looking at quite the history represented by the four teams. In fact it may be the most successful foursome since the LCS began in 1969.

Between the Giants, Cardinals, Yankees, and Tigers they have earned 48 World Championships, 93 pennants, and made 114 playoff appearances.

They have played a total of 74,878 games with a combined winning percentage of .515. (The Cards started playing in 1882, the Giants in 1883, the Yankees and Tigers in 1901.) The Giants have more wins than any other team in MLB history (10,616); the Cardinals are 4th (10,283). The Yankees are 8th overall and 1st in the American League with 9,318 wins. The Tigers are 12th with 8,828 - oddly enough 4th in the AL behind the Red Sox and the Indians (!).

The teams have had 12 of the 16 Triple Crowns in MLB history. They have won 22 Rookie of the Year Awards, 64 MVPs, and 14 Cy Youngs. (The Tigers have two pitchers who have won both in the same year - Justin Verlander in 2011 and Willie Hernandez in 1984.)

Combined the Giants, Cardinals, Yankees, and Tigers have 62 Hall of Famers (based on HOFers who most identified with the teams)  - which is about 20% of the total. The Giants have the most with 23. The Yankees are only 3rd.

So these are old and good teams. And have been for over 100 years. Baseball is wonderful.

[If you can’t get appreciate the history, here’s one hater fact for you: all four LCS teams have payrolls over $100 million. (This is the 2nd time this has occurred. The first was 2009 with the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers and Phillies.)]

Images:

Christy Mathewson - 1915 Cracker Jack - courtesy of vintagecardprices.com

Buster Posey - 2010 Bowman - courtesy of sfweekly.com

Stan Musial - 1953 Topps - courtesy of whig.com

Chris Carpenter - 2010 Sports Illustrated for Kids - autographsforsale.com

Babe Ruth - 1933 Goudey Gum - vintagecardprices.com

Derek Jeter - 2002 Topps - halloffamememorabilia.com

Ty Cobb - 1914 Cracker Jack - vintagecardprices.com

Justin Verlander - 2005 Bowman - monstermarketplace.com

Baseball unwritten rule #10,351:

Must post video of Bobby Thomson’s home run every October 3rd.

And for a added bit of film/baseball trivia…Russ Hodges is calling the game on the radio in this scene from The Godfather.

A big hand for Jose Reyes who committed the 500,000th error in MLB history.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for counting them for us.

Two Perfect Games in the Same Season:

1880

June 12 - Lee Richmond, Worcester Ruby Legs defeated the Cleveland Blues, 1-0

June 17 - John Montgomery Ward, Providence Grays defeated Buffalo Bisons, 5-0

2010

May 9 - Dallas Braden, Oakland A’s defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-0

May 29 - Roy Halladay, Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Florida Marlins, 1-0

2012

April 21 - Phil Humber, Chicago White Sox defeated the Seattle Mariners, 4-0

June 13 - Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants defeated the Houston Astros, 10-0

Notes:

* Lee Richmond threw the first perfect game in baseball history.

* The umpire in Richmond’s game was “Foghorn” Bradley. Just saying.

* I would support a new franchise being placed in Worcester, MA if they would be called the Ruby Legs.

* John Montgomery (“Monte”) Ward was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964. He founded the Players’ League which lasted only one season (1890).

* In each season one perfect game was thrown at home (Richmond, Braden, Cain) and one on the road (Ward, Halladay, Humber).

* Umpire Brian Runge was on the crew for both Humber’s and Cain’s perfectos.

Sources: baseball-reference.com and wikipedia.org

Images:

• Top left, Lee Richmond, courtesy of bleacherreport.com
• Top right, John Montgomery Ward, courtesy of baseball.wikia.com
• Center left, Dallas Braden, courtesy of Baseball by the Bay
• Center right, Roy Halladay, courtesy of wikimedia.org
• Bottom left, Phil Humber, courtesy of seattlepi.com
• Bottom right, Matt Cain, courtesy of sportsillustrated.cnn.com

Fenway Park - April 20, 1912

Fenway Park was supposed to open on April 18, 1912, a Thursday. The game was rained out. A doubleheader was scheduled for April 19, Patriots’ Day. Again the weather failed to cooperate. Finally, on Saturday April 20 at 3:00 pm the Boston Red Sox took the field against the New York Highlanders. (They wouldn’t be called the Yankees until the following season, and the heated rivalry was eight years - and an infamous trade - away.)

Anywhere from 24,000 to 27,000 fans were in attendance, enough that overflow was allowed to watch the game behind ropes in the outfield. (Not the outfield seats, the grass itself.) Seats were priced from 25¢ for the bleachers up to $1.50 for box seats. The crowd got its money’s worth.

The Highlanders jumped out to a 3-1 lead after the first inning. By the end of the 3rd it was 5-1. But in the bottom of the fourth, the Red Sox had three men cross the plate to bring the score to within one. Boston tied it up in the sixth, and both teams traded runs in the 8th.

The score was 6-6 after nine. In the bottom of the 11th the Sox scored again earning a 7-6 walk-off win in their brand-new park.  (No more details are known because there is no complete box score from the game.)

The Sox starter, Buck O’Brien, would earn the win and finish 20-13 that year. Ray Caldwell earned the loss, one of 16 against only 8 wins.

By October the Sox had run away with the AL pennant, with a final record of 105-47, fourteen games up on the 2nd place Washington Senators. (The Highlanders would finish last, 55 games behind Boston.) In the postseason, the Sox defeated the Giants five games to three (best of 9 back then), clinching it in their shiny new park on October 16, 1912. They would win three Series more by 1918…then a small championship drought you may be familiar with…before winning again in 2004 and 2007.

Favorite random fact: Fenway has been the home park for more football teams (5 - Boston Bulldogs, 1926; Boston Shamrocks, 1936-1937; Boston Redskins, 1933-1936, later moved to Washington; Boston Yanks, 1944-1948, the owner originally hoped to play in Yankee Stadium - awkward; and the Boston Patriots, 1963-1968) than baseball teams (2 - Sox and the Boston Braves for the 1914 World Series and 1915 season).

Sources: retrosheet.org, Boston’s SABR chapter (great stuff on 1912 there), and wikipedia.org

(Image of first ball thrown at Fenway on April 20, 1912 is courtesy of ESPN.com and copyright Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

April 15, 1947

0/3, 1 run, 1 grounded into double play, 1 sacrifice hit

11 putouts at first base

Dodgers 5, Braves 3

Only 65 years ago.

(Image courtesy of NABNYC. Thanks to retrosheet.org)

Presidential Pitches, Part III: World Series

Over the last two weeks we’ve taken a look at presidential first pitches during the regular season. First from Taft to JFK and then LBJ to Obama, what we learned was that the home teams did well when POTUS threw out that first pitch. Is it a coincidence? Of course. Does that matter? Not at all.

But as we know, regular season performance is fine but postseason performance is what matters. So let’s see how the leaders of the free world did when it was all on the line.

Note: The POTUS will receive credit for a win or loss by the home team.

Woodrow Wilson
1915 World Series, Game 2
Boston Red Sox 2, Philadelphia Phillies 1

The Phillies lose the game and lose the Series 4-1 to the Sox. The Phils won’t appear in the Series again for 35 years and won’t win one for 65 years.

Calvin Coolidge
1924 World Series, Game 1
NY Giants 4, Washington Senators 3

Senators’ ace and eventual 400-game winner Walter Johnson loses to Art Nehf. Nehf and Johnson pitch dual 12-inning complete games. The Senators would win the Series, though, for the only time in Washington, D.C. history. The above photo shows Coolidge greeting Senators’ manager, Bucky Harris, who has the seventh most managerial wins of all-time.

1925 World Series, Game 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 3, Washington Senators 4

Coolidge becomes the first president to throw out the first pitch at two World Series games.

Herbert Hoover
1929 World Series, Game 5
Chicago Cubs 2, Philadelphia A’s 3

Hoover sees the A’s win the World Series, helped by Mule Haas’ two home runs. Two weeks later the stock market crashes and the Great Depression begins. The events are probably unrelated.

1930 World Series, Game 1
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Philadelphia A’s 5

Hoover, who is seen in the photo above signing a ball for Cardinals manager Gabby Street, is present for the A’s second straight World Series appearance. He was a good luck charm because they won the game and the Series. Four of the A’s starting nine that day will end up in the Hall of Fame: Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons, and Lefty Grove.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
1933 World Series, Game 3
NY Giants 0, Washington Senators 4

In his first appearance as POTUS, FDR throws out the first pitch and opens the way for the Senators shutout victory over the Giants. The Giants won the Series, which was probably fine with FDR since he was previously the governor of New York.

1936 World Series, Game 2
NY Yankees 18, NY Giants 4

The Yankees were on their way to winning the first of four consecutive World Series. It was a game that featured eight future Hall of Famers (DiMaggio, Gehrig, Dickey, Lazzeri, Gomez, McCarthy, Ott, and Terry).

Photo note: The FDR picture is from the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field. FDR was campaigning in Chicago. On his left is mayor Anton Cermak. On his right is his FDR’s son James. Cermak was assassinated the next year while riding in a car with FDR in Florida. No one knows who was the actual target.

Dwight Eisenhower
1956 World Series, Game 2
NY Yankees 3, Brooklyn Dodgers 6

After a twenty-year drought, POTUS returns to the World Series. Although the Dodgers would go on to win the game, they lose the Series. This game features nine future HOFers: Mantle, Berra, Ford, Stengel, Snider, Reese, Robinson, Campanella, and Alston.

Jimmy Carter
1979 World Series, Game 7
Pittsburgh Pirates 4, Baltimore Orioles 1

In a mystery, Jimmy Carter may or may mot have thrown out the first pitch at this game. According to several sources, Carter threw out the first pitch but there is no photo of that anywhere. I contacted my friend, Tim Wiles (Director of Research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library and Archive - yeah, name dropping) and they have no photo either. He did find that Paul Dickson writes in Baseball: The President’s Game that Milton Eisenhower, brother of Dwight and president of Johns Hopkins University, threw out the first pitch. If true, this would make Carter the only president to never throw out a first pitch while in office. The photo shows Carter flipping a ball while talking to Eisenhower, but proves nothing.

George W. Bush
2001 World Series, Game 3
Arizona Diamondbacks 1, NY Yankees 2

In the most emotional presidential first pitch ever, George W. Bush takes the mound at Yankee Stadium a little over a month after the 9/11 attacks. The Yankees win the game 2-1 but lose the Series - one of the best in baseball history.

Presidential record in WS games: 6-4

Sources: baseball.about.com, www.baseball-almanac.com, and the always helpful www.retrosheet.org

- ə

Presidential First Pitches, Part II: LBJ to Obama

Last week we took a hard-throwing look at presidential first pitches beginning with William Howard Taft (1910) and ending with JFK (1963). The Washington Senators were beneficiaries of those POTUS pitches and had a 25-17 record when the Chief Executive threw out the first ball. We’ll look this week at how our modern presidents have done from the stands, and beginning with Reagan, from the mound.

Note: After 1969 the Washington Senators moved to Texas to become the Rangers. No teams played in DC until 2005. All home teams will be listed second.

Johnson, Throws: Right, Career: 0-3
1964 - Angels 9, Senators 0 - Opening day 1-hitter by the Angels’ Ken McBride and Julio Navarro
1965 - Red Sox 7, Senators 2
1967 - Indians 5, Senators 2

Nixon, Throws: Right, Career: 1-1
1969 - Yankees 8, Senators 4 - Last presidential first pitch in DC for nearly forty years
1973 - KC Athletics 2, California Angels 3 - Nixon, a California native, throws out the first West Coast POTUS pitch. Nolan Ryan strikes out 12 A’s.

Nixon resigned in the summer of 1974 due to Watergate

Ford, Throws: Right, Career: 1-0
1976 - Twins 1, Rangers 2 - Game features Gaylord Perry versus Bert Blyleven

Carter, Throws: Right, Career: n/a
Carter never threw out a first pitch during a regular season game. He did throw out the first pitch for game 7 of the 1979 World Series but we’ll look at that next week. (I do believe Reagan could have also won the 1980 election with the slogan: “Carter never threw out a pitch on Opening Day.”)

Reagan, Throws: Right, Career: 1-2
1984 - White Sox 5, Orioles 2
1985 - Indians 5, Orioles 4
1988 - Pirates 0, Cubs 6 - Reagan, who did Cubs play-by-play in the 1930s, throws out the first Opening Day POTUS pitch in the National League.

Bush I, Throws: Left, Career: 3-1
1989 - Red Sox 4, Orioles 5
1990 - Rangers 1, Blue Jays 2 - The first POTUS pitch thrown outside the U.S.
1991 - Brewers 4, Rangers 5 - President Bush had a good relationship with one of the Rangers’ owners…George W. Bush
1992 - Indians 0, Orioles 2 - The first game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Note: George H.W. Bush played first base while at Yale, which explains his awesome mitt in the photoset.

Clinton, Throws: Left, Career: 2-3
1993 - Rangers 4, Orioles 7
1994 - Mariners 3, Indians 4 - The first game at Jacobs’ Field (aka Progressive Field)
1996 - Royals 4, Orioles 2
1997 - Giants 5, Mets 1; Giants 7, Mets 2 - 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier
2000 - Dodgers 6, Giants 5

Bush II, Throws: Right, Career: 4-1
2001 - Reds 4, Brewers 5 - The first game at Miller Park
2004 - Brewers 8, Cardinals 6
2005 - Diamondbacks 5, Nationals 3 - The first game in Washington, DC in 36 years
2006 - Cubs 16, Reds 7
2008 - Braves 3, Nationals 2

Obama, Throws: Left, Career: 0-1
2010 - Phillies 11, Nationals 1

POTUS Record 1964-2011: 11-12
POTUS Record 1910-1963: 25-17

POTUS Record 1910-2011: 36-29

With a .554 winning percentage, which equals 90 wins over a full season, it’s clear that it generally benefits a team to have the Commander-in-Chief throwing out that first pitch. Although your best bet is to score Woodrow Wilson (4-0) or George W. Bush (4-1).

List of presidential first pitches courtesy of baseball.about.com. Scores and boxscores available from the amazing www.retrosheet.org.

Next week: The POTUS in the Playoffs

- ə