The Baseball President

Shank's latest column, on the recently deceased former President:

No president was more of a baseball guy than George H.W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush was a baseball guy.

He had a photo taken with Babe Ruth. He played college ball against Vin Scully and twice played in the College World Series in Omaha. He got Ted Williams to campaign for him in New Hampshire in 1988. He invited Ted and Joe DiMaggio to the Rose Garden for lunch in 1991 — the 50th anniversary of Ted’s .406 season and Joe’s 56-game hitting streak. Bush presented Ted with the Presidential Medal of Freedom that same year.

Bush entertained fellow Texan Roger Clemens at the White House in the summer of 1986 and invited a pack of sportswriters to the Roosevelt Room to talk about baseball before the start of the 1989 playoffs.