By Hal Wert

 

While fans of Major League Baseball (MLB) yearn to safely return to the ballpark during the COVID-19 pandemic, the story of West Branch native and 31st President of the United States (1929-1933) Herbert Hoover’s longtime love affair with what he called America’s greatest game and his effort to attend as many games as possible reminds us of baseball’s allure. For Hoover, like so many baseball fans of his generation, there was no substitute for being there. His record is astounding, unmatched by any other president. 

 

In 1908, when Tin Pan Alley songwriters Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer penned “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the future president already possessed a love of the game. His first taste of playing sandlot baseball in his hometown of West Branch was short-lived as he was soon packed off to Oregon to live with his uncle where time for baseball or any other game was few and far between. Accepted to Stanford University in its first year of operation, Hoover in 1893, his sophomore year, made the baseball team but after a thumb injury became the team’s business manager. Honestly assessing his baseball skills, he confessed, “I was for a short time on the baseball team as a shortstop, where I was not good.”

 

Revealing his unbridled ambition, the new business manager challenged a San Francisco professional team to a game. In the fifth inning, Stanford was trailing 30-0 before darkness mercifully ended the drubbing. After Stanford, his resolute pursuit of money, his incredible success with feeding the Belgians in World War I and his service in President Woodrow Wilson’s administration left no time for the ballpark.

 

Returning from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the long-absent, overworked Hoover plunged into family life. Soon appointed by fellow Republican and newly elected President Warren G. Harding as secretary of commerce, in the spring of 1922 Hoover accompanied Harding to the Washington Senators opening day game. Being in Washington in the 1920s was a good time for a baseball fan as the Senators usually finished mid-way in the American League, but in 1924 outdid themselves by winning the thrilling World Series that year in the 12th inning of the seventh game. Surprisingly, Hoover did not attend, nor did he attend other games although the sports page was a daily ritual.  

 

Elected president in 1928 in a landslide victory over Democrat candidate Al Smith, the following spring Hoover honored the presidential tradition of throwing out the first ball to open the 1929 baseball season. Senators’ fans were disappointed as the Philadelphia Athletics whipped the home team 13-4. Perhaps it was the atmosphere in Griffith Stadium; the crack of the bat, hawkers selling peanuts, but for whatever reason Hoover’s fondness for America’s game was reignited. 

 

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