Calcaterra: The Supreme Court’s love of baseball
From Craig Calcaterra at The National Pastime Museum on November 21, 2016:
Presidents, while famous for throwing out the first pitch at baseball games, have been far more closely associated with other sports in recent history. George W. Bush owned the Texas Rangers and his father was a ballplayer himself, but for the past 50 plus years they’re the exceptions, not the rule. JFK was famous for games of touch football at the Kennedy compound. Nixon’s love of the NFL is well documented. Gerald Ford was an actual football player. Ronald Reagan broadcast baseball games in his youth, but his nickname “The Gipper” comes from the gridiron as well—or, at the very least, a movie about the gridiron. And President Obama is first and foremost an NBA fan. Just as one has to go back pretty far to find a time when baseball truly was the National Pastime—at least, based on television ratings and revenues—one has to go back pretty far to find a time when our commander in chief was likewise our nation’s First Baseball Fan.
Such is not the case, however, when it comes to the Supreme Court. Indeed, several Supreme Court justices, particularly recent ones, have loved baseball with all of their hearts just as they have shaped baseball with their legal opinions.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/supreme-court-s-love-baseball
- Related link: “A Crank on the Court: The Passion of Justice William R. Day,” by Ross E. Davies (Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2009)
Originally published: November 21, 2016. Last Updated: November 21, 2016.