Presidential Baseball
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“The First Known Wilson Documents,” The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 1, p. 5
The earliest historical evidence produced by Woodrow Wilson were doodles written in a school geography textbook in 1870. Alongside drawings of a greyhound and hot air balloons, there is a sketch of a baseball diamond and two line ups of the Light Foot Base Ball Club of Augusta, Georgia. As second baseman and club secretary, Wilson clearly had a great interest in the game from a young age.
In the spring of 1874, during his year at Davidson College, Wilson played center field or second base for the Fighting Wildcats. Unfortunately, his passion for the game did not mean he was a great player, and Wilson failed to make the team at Princeton. He served as the team’s assistant manager instead. As a faculty member and then president at Princeton, years later, Wilson continued to encourage the team and the baseball rivalries with other schools.
After his election, President Wilson attended ten baseball games in town to watch the Washington Senators play. He threw out the first pitch on Opening Day in 1913, when they played the New York Yankees, a team that was appearing with that name for the first time.
On October 9th of 1915, President Wilson went to see the second game of the World Series, the first ever Fall Classic game attended by a president. Here again he threw the opening pitch. The Phillies played against the Boston Red Sox in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, Wilson missed the only appearance by a young “Babe” Ruth in the first game of the series. The President was accompanied by a woman he had recently started seeing, Edith Bolling Galt, along with her mother.
Despite having a “presidential lifetime pass,” a tradition starting with Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson always opted to pay for his ticket. You can see more images of President Wilson watching baseball games at the Library of Congress. The National Baseball Hall of Fame has more general exhibit about presidents and baseball.
