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

Moneyball 2012

By Aaron Sorkin & Sean Keane

(SCENE: The ramshackle Oakland front office’s conference room. Oakland scouts fidget nervously, staring at their own pagers rather than each other. Billy Beane bursts into the conference room waving a printout.)

Billy Beane: Guys, you’re still trying to replace Gio Gonzalez. I told you we can’t do it. We can’t do it. Now what we might be able to do is recreate him, in the field of social media.

Grady Fuson: The field of what?

Billy Beane: No one is talking about this team as contenders, but the real problem is no one is talking about this team, at all. We haven’t been a trending topic since Dallas Braden’s perfect game.

Ron Hopkins: What’s a Trending topic?

Billy Beane: Peter, get Wikipedia open for Ron. Gonzalez has 19,586 followers on Twitter. Andrew Bailey has 11,835 followers. Trevor Cahill is not on Twitter, but his Facebook fan page has 2,128 likes. What’s the total?

(He snaps his finger and points to Peter )

Peter Brand: Do you want me to speak?

Billy Beane: When I point to you, yeah. Why couldn’t Milton Bradley have been like you?

Peter Brand: Thirty three five forty-nine.

Billy Beane: Divided by three.

(Billy snaps his finger again)

Peter Brand: Eleven one eight three.

Billy Beane: That’s what we’re looking for. Three ball players whose average Klout score is…

Peter Brand: Sixty-three!

Billy Beane: Now here’s who we want. @LoMoMarlins, AKA Logan Morrison.

Ron Hopkins: Logan Morrison! That guy’s a head case.

Grady Fuson: The Marlins sent him to the minors last year even though he had 17 home runs.

Billy Beane: And he has 88,700 followers! Number two, @JoseCanseco.

Grady Fuson: Jose Canseco! Come on, Billy! He’s 47 years old!

Ron Hopkins: He proposed to Lady Gaga!

Grady Fuson:  Didn’t he box a kangaroo on pay-per-view?

Billy Beane: Well, his social media reach is all we’re looking at here.

Ron Hopkins: Why do you like this idiot?

Billy Beane: Peter?

Peter Brand: (shrugs) 400,000 followers, 2,000 Tweets. He gets online.

Billy Beane: Number Three, @RobDelaney.

Grady Fuson: For crissakes Billy, he’s not even a baseball player!

Billy Beane: Peter’s computer says Delaney’s received over 70,000 “Favorites,” some of his stuff has been retweeted over 6,00 times, and he looks good in baseball pants.

Ron Hopkins: Billy, we’re not selling jeans here.

Billy Beane: Maybe we are selling jeans. If we have players with followers, we can use sponsored tweets. We make a deal with Levi’s, and we might earn enough to afford hot water in the locker room showers. They’ll like him for the same reason we like him. Because…?

The Scouts: He gets online.

Billy Beane: He gets online!

Grady Fuson: So he Tweets a lot.

Billy Beane: He gets online a lot. Do I care if it’s a blog or a Facebook status update? Do I, Pete?

Peter Brand: You do not. Hey, who do I talk to about getting my character’s name changed?

Billy Beane:  Fausto Carmona.

ballsandlipgloss:

New York yankee Jorge Posada announces his retirement.

Dustin Pedroia gets punked by caller to local sports radio show.

(The call comes up around the 1:15 mark & while he says just prior to it that he thinks he knows who it is, he actually didn’t.)

Welcome back to Tampa, Carlos! Hope you’ll return to signing tacos again.

This man runs the MLB, sadly. Bud Selig Can’t Hear You: A Gallery

huggingharoldreynolds:

When you’re elected into the HOF have you decided what hat you will wear?

Donatella Versace intends to enter the Hall as a Met.

(Source: metsgifs)

oldtimefamilybaseball:

“Looking at our payroll, we thought, hey, why not put only eight men on the field. I mean, how many hits a game really do go to the shortstop? That many? Oh, shoot.” - Red Sox GM Ben Cherington after trading Marco Scutaro to the Rockies for groundballer Clayton Mortensen*.

It’s a position the…

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

Rays catcher Nevin Ashley cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. The Rays had designated the 27-year-old for assignment five days ago. He posted a .263/.358/.384 line in 444 plate appearances for the Rays’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates in 2011. Ashley, a 2006 sixth rounder, has a .260/.353/.378 line in parts of six pro seasons.

Cleveland Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona Roberto Hernandez-Heredia was arrested in the Dominican Republic when he tried to obtain a travel visa under his false name. The Fausto-ian bargain helped the former Carmona get a four-year contract after his stellar rookie season in 2007, although that season is less impressive now that he appears to be three years older than his listed age of 28.

The Indians can’t be happy about the arrest or the age discrepancy, which might make them regret picking up his $7 million option for 2012. Who is happy about it? Former utility infielder Fausto Cruz, who is now, again, the only Fausto in baseball history. And also me, because I can start working on my screenplay about the incident. The working title is “The Fausto And The Furious.”

(Sean Keane)

Have you seen a Bob around here lately?

ilovecharts:

R.I.P. Bobs

The Flagrant Fan has developed some new lingo to get us ready for the 2012 season. Some highlights:

Futilla - Bad hitting catcher. It’s a combination of Futile and Butera. Or perhaps A Shoppage would be better in honor of last year’s Bay Rays’

A Hairball - Named after any Hairston, a family whose players are like cats because their careers have nine lives.

A Halladaze - Named after the Phillies’ pitcher and used for any batter walking back to the dugout after a particularly baffling curve.

Donkeyed - Any player who suddenly loses all ability to play the game. Named after Mr. Dunn of course. Usage: “He was a pretty good player before he donkeyed.”

Enjoy.

- ə

(Source: huggingharoldreynolds)