Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House

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

Smith, Curt

Hardcover

Baseball & Softball

Publisher Price: $39.95

ISBN10: 0803288093
ISBN13: 9780803288096
Publisher: Univ Of Nebraska Pr
Published: Jun 1 2018
Pages: 504
Weight: 1.90
Height: 1.50 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smith's extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between baseball, the most American sport, and the U.S. presidency.

Smith, who USA TODAY calls America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting, starts before America's birth, when would-be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as America's pastime in the nineteenth century, such presidents as Lincoln and Johnson playing town ball or giving employees time off to watch. Smith tracks every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Wilson buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic FDR saving baseball in World War II; Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; Reagan, airing baseball on radio that he never saw--by re-creation.

George H. W. Bush, for whom Smith wrote, explains, Baseball has everything. Smith, having interviewed a majority of presidents since Richard Nixon, shares personal stories on each. Throughout, The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America's leaders have treated baseball. From Taft as the first president to throw the first pitch on Opening Day in 1910 to Obama's Go Sox! scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport, enriching both their office and the nation.

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