William Howard Taft becomes the first President to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, 1910
Perfectly inane offseason content. April 14 1910 Taft became the first president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, creating a new tradition. Since then nearly every president has thrown out at least one ceremonial first pitch. FDR holds the record for most first pitches while in office (11) while the Bush’s both have done it 14 times counting time before and after holding office. Initially ceremonial first pitches were thrown from the stands but Ronald Reagan changed all that when he threw out a pitch from the field in 1988.
17 comments
lol why you had to call him a fatass in the title?
I feel like [Fauci’s disaster of a pitch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD5xkn4WLA) marked the end of government officials doing these. There really is no coming back after that
Taft also threw out the first pitch in 1911, but not in 1912: it was thrown out by Vice President James Sherman, because Taft was so distraught about the death of his good friend Major Archibald Butt, presumed drowned with the sinking of the Titanic a few days earlier. [I am not making this up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Butt).
OG Big Sexy
Maybe I’m in a mood…But this is just making me think of someone posting a picture on Reddit in 100 years of Fat Joe performing before the Dodgers World Series clinching game and we’ll all be long dead and gone.
Like, what is that guy’s and the kid’s story who are sitting in the bottom left? Were they happy? Did they live good lives? They don’t look happy. The guy looks like he’s having an existential crisis. Was it a bad pitch and he just was embarrassed to watch? Life is so fucking weird.
Bro I thought I was in r/Presidents for a sec
The first two things one always remembers about Taft, he got stuck in a bathtub and was buried in a piano case.
love this photo
Can we talk about how fucking dapper the fans were back then??
As a 300 lb former baseball player, I’m a little offended.
William “Sabathia” Taft
he threw out the first pitch from the stands?
Last time a president threw out the first pitch: Obama
Went to Nats Park on Labor Day and the tour brought us to the Terra Club. At the entrance they have a photo of every presidential first pitch. I asked ’em why the last president was Obama, why didn’t the others throw. They said the Nats reached out to them but they declined. Must not be intersted in seeing 70 and 80 year olds throw baseballs
I loveeeee history, so this is really cool info to me. However, how THE HELL do you leave out what game it was? Who played who?
Also secretary of state under Teddy Roosevelt
Everyone must’ve been so hot watching baseball back in the day in the dead of summer wearing suits.
The poor bastard who paid for seats behind the woman to the left of the president with the humongous hat.