United States Presidents and Baseball

Happy Election Day!

To commemorate the election,  SABR member Rick Smith prepared the trivia below and gave it to us at the SABR meeting November 3, 2012.   Thanks Rick!

Each President listed below is an answer to a question, except Eisenhower, who is the answer to two.

A)William Taft, B) Woodrow Wilson, C) Calvin Coolidge, D) Herbert Hoover, E) Franklin Roosevelt, F) Harry Truman, G) Dwight Eisenhower, H) John F. Kennedy, I) Lyndon Johnson, J) Richard Nixon, K)Gerald Ford, L) Jimmy Carter, M) Ronald Reagan, N) George Bush, O) Bill Clinton, P) George W. Bush, Q) Barack Obama, (Fill in the blank on #18). \

1.  This president only attended four games while in office, but he stayed nine innings each time.  His brother has a stadium named after him ___

2.  Upon meeting this president, babe Ruth said, “Hot as hell, ain’t it Pres.” ___

3.  This president was not much of a baseball fan, but he enjoyed pitching slow pitch softball.  In 1995 he said, “It’s time to forgive Pete Rose.” ___

4.  Name the president who is credited with starting the tradition of standing for the seventh inning stretch? ___

5.  This president holds the record of attending 16 games while in office.  He is the first president to attend a night game, and a game on the Fourth of July.  ___

6.  Which pres. Threw out the first pitch at Cleveland’s brand new Jacob’s Field, and was in attendance when Cal Ripken played his 2,131^st game. ___

7.  Name the president who wrote the “Green Light” letter. ___

8.  Babe Ruth grounded out as a pinch hitter in his first ever World Series appearance.  Name the president who was in attendance that day.  ___

9.  This future president served as the team captain of the Yale Bulldogs.  They made it to the final round of the very first College World Series. ___

10.  Which president said?  “when I was a boy growing up in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing.  As we sat there in the warmth of a summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up.  I told him I wanted to be a real major league baseball player like Honus Wagner.  My friend said that he’d like to be President of the United States.  Neither of us got our wish. ___

11.  A reporter once asked this president to name his favorite players and he rattled off his favorite stars.  A few days later he named four all teams; a team for each league, both before and after World War II. ___

12.  HE was the first president to have played Little League Baseball.  ___

13.  This pres. Signed a bill allowing girls to play Little League Baseball.  ___

14.  This future president was employed to produce studio broadcasts of Cubs games, based on telegraph reports. ___

15.  This president  attended the first game ever played in the Astro Dome. ___

16.  Which president said “Baseball is the greatest of American sports”  ___

17.  Name the president who sent a Secret Service agent to intercept Mickey Vernon on his way back to the dugout after he hit a walk off homerun to beat the Yankees.  He simply wanted to congratulate him. ___

18.  President Obama threw out the first pitch at the 2009 All Star Game.  Which team jacket was he wearing?  ______

update:  Oops!  I forgot to include the answers.

1 H,  2 C,  3 L,  4 A,  5 F,  6 O,  7 E,  8 B,  9 N,  10 G,  11 J,  12 P,  13 K,  14 M,  15 I,  16 D,  17 G,  18 White Sox.