popular as football and
basketball have become, we
THE PRESIDENTS
AND THE PASTIME:
THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL
& THE WHITE HOUSE
By Curt Smith
2017, University of Nebraska
Press
[ISBN 978-0803288096, 504
pp, $29.95 USD, Hardcover]
Reviewed by
Andrew Milner
ajmilner@comcast.net
2018 Frick Award recipient
Bob Costas has recalled that
his interest in baseball started
as a boy, around the same time
he took an interest in United
States presidents. There have
been many children who, while
flipping through the World
Almanac, have noticed how
U.S. Presidents and World
Series winners are presented in
chronological lists and have
immediately committed both
lists to memory. And as
Page 19 - The Inside Game - Vol. XVIII, No. 4
advocate of “the strenuous
life,” famously hated baseball
still associate presidents with (“since childhood, he had
starting only one season — treated baseball like castor
baseball – with the ritual oil”). William Howard Taft, on
throwing out of the first pitch. the other hand, inaugurated
the presidential first pitch of
Curt Smith is perhaps uniquely
the season at the Washington
qualified to combine these two
Senators’ 1910 home opener.
subjects into one book. The
Smith tells us that Taft
former speechwriter for George
attended 14 games that season,
H.W. Bush is a SABR member
and while in St. Louis that May
with over a dozen baseball
4th went to a Browns and a
titles over the past 40 years.
Cardinals game. Woodrow
His Voices of the Game (1987)
Wilson, if not as passionate a
remains the definitive one-
fan, went public with his
volume history of baseball
engagement to second wife
broadcasting, and his other
Edith by attending Game 2 of
baseball books include
the 1915 Red Sox/Phillies
biographies of Dizzy Dean, Mel
World Series together.
Allen, and Vin Scully. In The
Presidents and the Pastime, he The book could have done with
studies how our chief a little judicious editing. Smith
executives have (or, in some occasionally lapses into
cases, haven’t) followed impressionistic passages: The
baseball during their lives both Stick hosted the 1961 All-Star
in and out of the White House. Game: NL, 5-4, on tenth-
inning hits by Hank Aaron,
Smith starts with George
Mays and Roberto Clemente.
Washington’s soldiers playing
Starkest was reliever Stu
a form of baseball at Valley
Miller, balking. The papers
Forge, quoting one soldier that
blared: MILLER BLOWN OFF
Washington “sometimes
MOUND! The Giants blew off
throws and catches a ball for
the Dodgers in a 1962 pennant
hours with his aide-de-camp,”
playoff. Ahead: the Yankees in
through Abraham Lincoln
a Transcontinental (née
finishing a townball at-bat
Subway) World Series. At
before accepting the GOP
moments like these with
nomination in 1860. “It
excessive capitalizations,
seemed to etch Lincoln’s core,”
parenthetical asides, and so
Smith writes, “(of) humility,
many colons, Smith doesn’t
irony and equality.” Regarding
pause to take a breath. More
the current resident at 1600
importantly, he doesn’t permit
Pennsylvania Avenue, Smith
the reader to catch theirs. And
notes that Donald Trump did
a book as chock full of
not throw out a first pitch in
information as this one
his first year in office but
inevitably has a few factual
reassures us, “(T)he Donald
lapses. Smith declares that
truly likes baseball.”
“radio let (Warren Harding)
Deadball Era Presidents reach twenty million
provide a study in contrasts. Americans for a twenty-minute
Theodore Roosevelt, an
speech.” Later in the same
chapter, Smith asserts with
equal confidence that
Harding’s successor Calvin
Coolidge addressed Congress
in “(t)he first presidential
speech broadcast on radio.”
But Smith has also done some
exceptionally impressive
research. Almost all SABR
members are aware of Franklin
D. Roosevelt’s “green light”
letter to Commissioner Landis
allowing professional baseball
to continue during World War
II. Yet few are aware how, in
1945, Sporting News publisher
J.G. Taylor Spink started an
unsuccessful crusade to elect
FDR to the Baseball Hall of
Fame in tribute. Smith quotes
Spink’s correspondence to Hall
of Fame executives (“It is
difficult to figure out how such
men [voting] as Connie Mack,
Ed Barrow and Bob Quinn can
ignore the great effect the late
President had upon the history
of baseball”) and champions
Roosevelt’s election by the
Veterans’ Committee.
Smith has chosen a baseball
subject that has not been
written about to death (like the
Black Sox or the steroid crisis)
and placed presidential history
in the context of baseball
history and vice versa, with an
enthusiasm rare in much of
today’s writing about the sport.
The Presidents and the
Pastime is Smith’s best
baseball book since Voices of
the Game, and if there’s little
specifically about the Deadball
Era, it is highly recommended
to committee members and
baseball fans in general.
Andrew Milner was a lead
researcher for The World
Series in the Deadball Era, and
has also written for The BIZ MACKEY, A GIANT
National Pastime, Base Ball: A BEHIND THE PLATE:
Journal of the Early Game, and THE STORY OF THE
The Cooperstown Review. He NEGRO LEAGUE STAR
also regularly contributed to AND HALL OF FAME CATCHER
the Philadelphia City Paper for
20 years. A SABR member By Rich Westcott
since 1984, he lives in
suburban Philadelphia and 2018, Temple University Press
longs for another Phillies [ISBN 978-1439915516, 160
World Series parade. pp, $27.50 USD, Hardcover]

PUBLISHERS ACKNOWLEDGMENT Reviewed by

Steve Leppert
As newsletter readers know, copies of the books reviewed
leppert.steven@gmail.com
herein were generously supplied to us by their publishers.
The Age of Ruth and Landis and The Presidents and the
Pastime were published by the University of Nebraska Press In Biz Mackey, A Giant Behind
and can be ordered via 800-848-6224 (telephone) or The Plate: The Story Of The
orders@longleafservices.org (email). Baseball Greatness Negro League Star And Hall
comes from McFarland and can be obtained by calling Of Fame Catcher, Rich
800-253-2187 or emailing info@mcfarland.pub.com. Westcott superbly portrays the
Legendary Lumber was published by Peter E. Randall and can professional baseball career of
be ordered by telephone (603-431-5667) or email James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey.
(media@perpublisher.com). Showdown at Rickwood comes Mackey was a National
from Blue Rooster Press and can be ordered by calling Baseball Hall of Fame catcher
205-706-3230 or emailing Showdownatrickwood@gmail.com. whose career spanned over 25
The Biz Mackey bio is published by the Temple University years in the Negro Leagues,
Press and can be ordered via telephone (1-800-621-2736) or by from 1920 through 1947. The
visiting retail book outlets. As always, your patronage of these book makes a strong case for
publishers is appreciated. Mackey being one of the

Page 20 - The Inside Game - Vol. XVIII, No. 4