Joe Biden continues line of US Presidents with a passion for baseball
The 46th US President Joe Biden has a strong link to the world of baseball. The 78-year-old native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, played the old game in his youth, reportedly as a centre fielder and shortstop.
While he lived in Delaware, Biden became a coach of the Little League team where his elder child Beau was playing. Father and son are pictured above. Beau Biden passed away at age 46 in 2015.
In 2009, during Biden's enshrinement ceremony for the Little League Museum Hall of Excellence, the-then US Vice President jokingly remarked: "If you had told me when I was an eight-year-old, playing in my first Little League, that I had a choice of pitching in the World Series and win it or be Vice President, I would have pitched."
Biden, who is also a Philadelphia Phillies fan, is not the first US President to reveal a passion for baseball.
Donald Trump, a first baseman, wrote in 2004: “I was supposed to be a pro baseball player. At the New York Military Academy, I was captain of the baseball team."
George W Bush played in his youth and, before serving as the Governor of Texas, he became a managing partner of the Texas Rangers.
Bush opened the South Lawn of the White House to t-ball player in the spring of 2001. He threw the ceremonial first pitch of game 3 of the 2001 MLB World Series from the mound.
George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, was the first baseman and captain of the Yale University baseball team in 1947.
The first Presidential first pitch dates back to April 1910 and William Howard Taft, who threw from his seat in the stands a ball to the Opening Day pitcher of the Washington Senators, Walter Johnson.
Barack Obama is an avid Chicago White Sox fan. During his historic visit to Cuba in March 2016, Obama sat next to Raul Castro at the LatinoAmericano Stadium in Havana and watched an exhibition game between the MLB Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team.
Ronald Reagan earned his first job as an actor after some impressive performances as the radio announcer for the MLB Chicago Cubs.
Abraham Lincoln's passion for the game was even depicted in a political cartoon in 1860. It showed Lincoln challenging his opponents on a baseball field.
The first US President to attend an MLB game was Benjamin Harrison, who witnessed Cincinnati beat Washington, 7-4, on 6 June 1892.
George Washington couldn't have played baseball as we know it, but he used to relax playing rounders, a British bat and ball game, with his men. Andrew Jackson was very fond of a traditional American bat and ball game named one old cat.
