The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House

The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smiths extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between the most American sportbaseballand the U.S. presidency.

Smith, who USA Today has called Americas voice of authority on baseball broadcasting, begins before Americas birth, when would-be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as Americas pastime in the nineteenth century. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Joe Biden, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Woodrow Wilson, buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic Franklin Roosevelt, saving baseball in World War II; Jimmy Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; and George H. W. Bush, who explained, Baseball has everything.

The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how Americas leaders have treated baseball. From William Howard Taft, the first president to throw the first pitch on Opening Day in 1910, to Barack Obamas Go [White] Sox! scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport. See more