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• The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2018

1. The presidents and the pastime : the history of baseball and the White House LCCN 2017045455 Type of material Book Personal name Smith, Curt, author. Main title The presidents and the pastime : the history of baseball and the White House / Curt Smith. Published/Produced Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Description xvi, 469 pages,18 unnumbered pages of plates ; 24 cm ISBN 9780803288096 (cloth : alk. paper) 9781496207418 (pdf) CALL NUMBER GV867.3 .S63 2018 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• Amazon -

  Curt Smith's seventeenth and newest book is June 1, 2018's The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House--the ideal author to be the first to exhaustively explore the tie between the two great American institutions of the Presidency and baseball.

  To USA Today, Smith is the "voice of authority on baseball broadcasting"--and to Chicago Cubs announcer Pat Hughes, "simply one of the best baseball historians, ever." His baseball books include Voices of The Game, what Publisher's Weekly called the "monumental" history of baseball broadcasting. It was adapted into a smash series at the Smithsonian Institution and an acclaimed three-part series on ESPN TV.

  He also wrote more speeches than anyone for George H. W. Bush during and after his 1989-93 Presidency. They include among the 41st President's best-known speeches--his "Just War" address; speech on the USS Arizona Memorial site on Pearl Harbor's fiftieth anniversary that John McCain termed "moving ... thick with emotion"; and Bush's 2004 eulogy to Ronald Reagan. The New York Times terms Smith's work "the high point of Bush familial eloquence."
  Today Smith is a Senior Lecturer of English at the University of Rochester, where he teaches Public Speaking and Presidential Rhetoric. He is a Gatehouse Media columnist, Associated Press award-winning radio commentator, and has analyzed baseball and politics for numerous national and regional media outlets. NBC broadcaster Bob Costas says, "Curt Smith stands up for the beauty of words."

  Before the White House, Smith was a Gannett reporter, The Saturday Evening Post senior editor, and Cabinet speechwriter in the Reagan Presidency. Since leaving it, he has keynoted the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and the Great Fenway Writers Series, addressed the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) Convention--and hosted Smithsonian Institution, Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, XM Satellite Radio, and National Public Radio affiliate series.

  Among Smith's books is Mercy!, a tribute to Fenway Park, lauded by each 1988 major-party presidential foe. Bush wrote, "Marvelous." Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis dubbed it "extraordinary." Other books include Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story; Of Mikes and Men; Voices of Summer; What Baseball Means to Me; and biographies of Dizzy Dean and Mel Allen. Smith also contributed to Cambridge [University's] Companion to Baseball, the National Museum of American Jewish History's Chasing Dreams, and over a dozen volumes of SABR's series on years/teams.

  Smith has written for, among others, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, The New York Times, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on many radio/TV outlets including ABC's Nightline, BBC, CBS This Morning, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox News Channel, MLB, MSNBC, Mutual, Sirius, and The History Channel.

  Raised in New York State, the 1973 State University of New York at Geneseo graduate was named among the "Outstanding Alumni" of New York's SUNY system and to the select Judson Welliver Society of former Presidential speechwriters. He is a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame committee and the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award broadcast committee. Smith lives with wife Sarah and two children in Upstate New York.

• Sports Broadcast Journal - http://www.sportsbroadcastjournal.com/baseball-broadcast-historian-curt-smith-previews-his-new-book-the-presidents-and-the-pastime/

  QUOTED: "All my life, I’ve loved the great institutions of baseball and the Presidency of the United States. Lots of other Americans do, too. A Dad may not know the color of his daughter’s eyes but can explain why he feels a certain president was a boom or bust. Aunt Maude long ago forgot her favorite nephew’s birthday, but not what Yaz hit in 1967. Yet improbably, no one had etched their kinship in detail. So, in 2014, having written on baseball and speeches for President George H. W. Bush, I began to research this only-in-America twinning-of-the-heart."

  Baseball Broadcast Historian Curt Smith Previews his New Book, ‘The Presidents and the Pastime’
  Author of 'Voices of the Game' takes readers on a trip through baseball's presidential history; from the Revolutionary War through Lincoln and right up to Donald Trump!
  By David J. Halberstam 05/31/2018 0

  Curt Smith, author of the freshly released, The Presidents and the Pastime
  Curt Smith’s knowledge of presidential history is deeper than dead center field in the old Polo Grounds. And yes, his love for baseball stimulated him to pen a book on stadiums, Baseball’s History through its Ballparks. His hands-on experience in the White House as a speechwriter for former President George H. W. Bush reinforced his love for profiling those who’ve manned the Oval Office.
  In the sports world, Curt Smith is well known for his breakthrough work on the history of Major League Baseball broadcasting. In an even bigger sphere, he’s known for his expertise on American presidents. Through the years, he’s written prolifically on both topics and more.
  Mention a president or anything baseball and Smith delights with unrestrained vibrancy, whether sharing an emotional anecdote about a Commander-in-Chief or a longtime play-by-play announcer. If you want to hit a hot button, just ask him about the 1950s version of the Voice of the Game of the Week, Hall of Famer turned broadcaster, Dizzy Dean. Smith will wonder aloud till blue in the face, why Dean hasn’t been honored yet with the Ford Frick Award.

  When it comes to the presidency and baseball, it’s not a matter of 1 and 1A. Smith is equally passionate about both. His latest book, The Presidents and the Pastime intertwines the two subjects beautifully and is being released today by University of Nebraska Press.
  Before Curt shares snippets of what he covers in the text, allow me to mention an intersecting story of Vin Scully and Barack Obama. In 2016, when the ex-president awarded the popular baseball announcer and other civilians with Medals of Freedom, he quipped, “I thought about him (Scully) doing all of these citations, which would have been very cool, but I thought we shouldn’t let him sing for his supper like that.”
  At one point when Scully played golf with President George H. W. Bush, the two men recollected that they were on the same baseball field in a game between their respective colleges, Vin for Fordham and the former president for Yale.
  Author Curt Smith talks about The Presidents and the Pastime:
  All my life, I’ve loved the great institutions of baseball and the Presidency of the United States. Lots of other Americans do, too. A Dad may not know the color of his daughter’s eyes but can explain why he feels a certain president was a boom or bust. Aunt Maude long ago forgot her favorite nephew’s birthday, but not what Yaz hit in 1967. Yet improbably, no one had etched their kinship in detail. So, in 2014, having written on baseball and speeches for President George H. W. Bush, I began to research this only-in-America twinning-of-the-heart. On June 1, The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House, will be released. (University of Nebraska Press, 466 pp, photos, index, $29.95.)
  The book begins in the Revolutionary War, each side playing a form of baseball, then segues to presidents like Lincoln and Johnson playing “town ball” or giving workers time off to watch. Next, it tracks each president from Theodore Roosevelt, who had to hide his dislike of baseball due to its appeal, to Donald Trump, a big-league prospect who declined to sign a pro contract, spurning “baseball money” for “real [business] money.” Each chapter depicts a different baseball relationship. Among others, William Howard Taft coined the rite of throwing the Opening Day “first pitch” in 1910. Woodrow Wilson found baseball a refuge from strokes that later took his life. Franklin Roosevelt saved baseball in World War II—this book urges the Baseball Hall of Fame to posthumously induct him. Harry Truman tossed the ball left-, right-, and both-handed; “the real fan,” wife Bess, he said, cheering the Senators by radio on the Truman Balcony. Dwight Eisenhower sent a poignant letter to Don Newcombe after Yogi Berra thrashed him in the 1956 World Series.
  Ike left office in 1960, at 70. That year John F. Kennedy, 43, met Stan Musial, 39: “They tell me you’re too old to play baseball and I’m too young to be president, but maybe we’ll fool ’em.” Richard Nixon inhaled baseball as would a lifelong Walter Mitty, in 1965 offered a post as both commissioner and director of the players union. Jimmy Carter learned the game from his mother and baseball savant, “Miss Lillian,” who with her husband drove each year to a different city to see up to a 10-day big-league homestand. Ronald Reagan aired baseball on radio that he never saw—by “re-creation”—later playing Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander on film.
  Bill Clinton grew up in Arkansas listening to Cardinals voice Harry Caray; George W. Bush’s sweet spot came the night he threw a perfect strike in the World Series at Yankee Stadium in the wake of 9/11; Barack Obama took the mound at the Nationals’ D.C. park to throw out the first ball, revealing in his glove a hometown White Sox cap he put on to show how all politics is local. Before becoming president, Trump often performed the first-pitch rite. Possibly afraid of being booed, he has not done so on Opening Day in office.
  George H. W. Bush explains, “Baseball has everything.” It was a thought, he said, that came to him not long after he first picked up a bat at five. From Taft as the first president to throw the “first pitch” on Opening Day to Obama’s “Go [White] Sox!” scrawled in the guest register at the Hall of Fame in 2014, U.S. presidents have helped light baseball’s torch. The last chapter etches what baseball needs now to carry that torch to the larger culture and a new generation, the Great American Game tied to the Great American Dream.

• Cooperstown Crier - https://www.coopercrier.com/sports/smith-book-details-presidents-love-of-baseball/article_6ba36bb9-57ff-5a77-9ef3-3ca8790c758f.html

  Smith book details presidents' love of baseball
  By Greg Klein THE COOPERSTOWN CRIER Jul 18, 2018

  Curt Smith spoke July 11 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame about his new book, ‘The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House.’Greg Klein | The Cooperstown Crier

  Throughout American history, presidents of the United States have had a special relationship with baseball, the game known as America’s pastime, according to author Curt Smith.
  “The link to baseball begins in the winter of 1778, 1779,” he said. “George Washington played rounders (a forerunner of baseball) at Valley Forge.”
  Smith, an author, newspaper columnist and former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, spoke July 11 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame about his new book, “The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House,” as part of the Hall’s summer Authors Series.

  From Washington’s wartime exercise to George W. Bush co-owning the Texas Rangers to Barack Obama’s visit to the Hall in 2014, American presidents have almost always played, loved or associated themselves to baseball, with only a few notable exceptions, Smith said.
  “Teddy Roosevelt despised baseball, except he could not say so,” Smith said.
  Calvin Coolidge didn’t know much about baseball either, Smith said, but he knew enough to tie himself to the success of the Washington Senators, who won the World Series in 1924 just before the presidential election that year.
  “It made him seem like a baseball every man,” Smith said. “He won a landslide election.”
  William Howard Taft called himself a “would-be pitcher,” Smith said. “He settled for being president.”
  Dwight Eisenhower wanted to be a baseball player, too, Smith said, and he often noted one of his closest friends wanted to be president.
  “‘Neither got our wish,’” Smith quoted Eisenhower as saying.
  Smith said Richard Nixon was undoubtedly the greatest baseball scholar among the presidents, and Major League Baseball offered him the job of baseball commissioner in 1965. Nixon declined the offer and was elected president in 1968.
  Bush, Smith’s former boss, was a standout player at Yale, and was probably the best baseball player among the American presidents, he said. Donald Trump, the current president, was also probably good enough to become a professional player, Smith said, but he reportedly said there wasn’t enough money to be made playing baseball.

  Smith said Trump’s skill as a baseball player was one of the great unreported stories of the 2016 election. However, he was critical of Trump for not throwing out the first pitch on opening day for the Washington Nationals the past two years. Smith reminded the audience of about 40 people that he was a populist conservative before saying that Trump needed to remember that he was president of all Americans and should appear at opening day for the good of the country.
  “I would suggest in fact he is afraid of being booed,” Smith said. “However, he is the president of everyone ... so he should man up, show up ... and do his job.”
  Two of Smith’s most amusing anecdotes involved modern presidents and their attempts at announcing baseball games.
  Ronald Reagan worked as a baseball announcer in Iowa, calling Chicago Cubs games without actually being at the games, using wire reports to simulate the action for the audience. However, when the wire went out briefly, Reagan felt he would lose the audience if they cut away to music. So he ad-libbed a dramatic at bat where the batter fouled off many pitches. Unfortunately for Reagan, when the wire report came in, the batter with the dramatic at bat had actually made an out on the first pitch.
  In 1995, when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s “iron man” streak by playing in his 2,131th consecutive game, Bill Clinton sat in on the broadcast. Jon Miller was calling the game, but Clinton predicted Ripken’s homer and then excitedly took over announcing for Miller, cheering for Ripken’s feat.
  “I can now put on my resume I worked with President Bill Clinton, a very close friend,” Smith quoted Miller as saying.
  The author series will continued with another event Thursday, July 19, as former manager Davey Johnson and his co-writer Erik Sherman talk about Johnson’s autobiography, “Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond.”

• Democrat & Chronicle - https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/2018/09/07/baseball-hall-fame-franklin-delano-roosevelt-curt-smith-presidents-and-pastime/1200734002/

  Local author Curt Smith urges Baseball Hall of Fame to induct Franklin Roosevelt

  Gary Craig, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Published 5:00 a.m. ET Sept. 7, 2018 | Updated 1:10 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2018

  Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman are heading to Cooperstown after being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Time Sports

  (Photo: Provided photo)

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  Few sports debates can be as animated as who deserves to be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
  Why not Tony Oliva? Or Roger Maris? Or — dare we go there — Barry Bonds or Pete Rose?
  For author, University of Rochester English professor, and former presidential speechwriter Curt Smith, there is a glaring omission at Cooperstown's hallowed Hall. His choice: U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
  "Everyone admits that he saved the game," Smith, who served as a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, said in a recent interview.
  Smith's latest book, The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House, makes the case for FDR's entry into the Hall of Fame. And Smith has been traveling the country, making the case himself — speaking at the Hall of Fame, at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, and on prominent and popular sports and political radio shows, such as NPR'S Political Junkie with Ken Rudin. C-SPAN has aired his talk at the FDR Library.

  Smith's book not only highlights Roosevelt's connection with baseball, but also details how, with World War II erupting, Roosevelt helped ensure that baseball would continue for both the fans at home and the soldiers abroad who hungered for box scores.
  Smith's book winds through the entire presidential lineup, leading off with George Washington and a pastime of his that is believed to be a precursor of baseball. The book is chock-full of nuggets and anecdotes about presidents and first ladies who worshipped the sport and/or tolerated the sport. (Folks with enough political savvy to be elected president are also smart enough not to express disdain for America's sport. LBJ, for one, was not an admiring fan, but tried to play the part nonetheless.)

  The Presidents and the Pastime (Photo: Provided photo)
  As a youngster in Caledonia, Livingston County, Smith followed baseball and voraciously read the World Book Encyclopedia. "How many families had the World Book pre-Google," he said. "I was drawn to the presidency and to baseball."
  "I think it was inevitable that I write this book," Smith said. This is his 17th book, and most have focused on his passions for the country's chief executive and its national pastime.
  For Smith, the research not only unearthed a bounty of heretofore largely unknown stories linking presidents and baseball, but also revealed FDR's significant role in keeping the sport alive while the country was embroiled in World War II. And, as it turns out, there was an earlier push to get Roosevelt into the Hall of Fame, but it was shot down by the conservative members of the Old-Timers selection committee who did not care for Roosevelt's politics.

  Some of the game's best, including Ted Williams and Stan Musial, served in World War II. A month after Pearl Harbor, baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote to Roosevelt, questioning whether the commander in chief thought "professional baseball should continue to operate."
  Roosevelt was so insistent that baseball continue, even with many of its known players likely to serve in wartime, that he responded with what he noted was "solely a personal" belief that the game must go on. He read his reply at a news conference.
  "He understood America and he understood the game," Smith said. "He knew baseball was important to the morale of the country."
  Roosevelt's letter became known as "the Green Light Letter" and hangs in the Hall of Fame. One columnist called it "the most important document baseball has had since the original code of rules was written."
  J.G. Taylor Spink, the publisher of the popular publication The Sporting News, in 1945 urged the Hall of Fame to enshrine Roosevelt. "He preserved the life of the game at a critical juncture," Spink wrote.
  In his book, Smith portrays a decision to add FDR to the Hall of Fame as a no-brainer that continues to elude the hall's powers-that-be. Writes Smith: "You might think that putting FDR in a hall of fame enshrining baseball would be a given — even for such a motley maze as big-league mandarins — if for no other purpose than as a thank-you."
  Yet, it has not happened. And, while Roosevelt's contributions to the game are remembered, the current leadership at the Hall of Fame maintains that the rules simply don't allow the enshrinement of one whose ties to the sport were not on the field or in baseball's managerial or administrative ranks.
  "By rule, Hall of Fame election is limited to former baseball players, managers, umpires and executives," Hall of Fame spokesman and Vice President Jon Shestakofsky said in an email. "Therefore, there is no avenue open to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
  "However, Roosevelt and the 'Green Light Letter' are recognized within our walls. An enlarged copy of the 'Green Light Letter' is displayed for all visitors to see, along with an explanation of its historical relevance to baseball and American history. Additionally, the actual 'Green Light Letter' is a part of the Hall of Fame’s Library collection."
  Smith thinks that Roosevelt's case warrants a detour from the established rules. Without Roosevelt, he said, the game of baseball may not have survived the war.
  "We would not be talking today about baseball were it not for Roosevelt," he said.
  "I realize that inducting FDR would be a singular exception to the Hall of Fame’s rule," he said. "However, Roosevelt merits it, being a singular exception. He was elected president four times, helped end the Depression, and, with Winston Churchill, helped win World War II.
  "In a baseball sense, there are 317 plaques at the Hall of Fame hailing players, managers, executives, and umpires," Smith said. "Not one includes the phrase 'saved baseball.' Roosevelt’s plaque would, and should."
  GCRAIG@Gannett.com
  Baseball and presidents
  Among the nuggets of baseball-presidential connections in Curt Smith's The Presidents and the Pastime, published by University of Nebraska Press, are:
  • That George Washington's troops played "rounders" — a "baseball antecedent from Great Britain" — before the brutal winter at Valley Forge and that Washington himself was known to throw and catch "a ball for hours with his aide-de-camp."
  • Abraham Lincoln was, according to a report, playing in a game in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, in 1860 when friends arrived to tell him he had secured enough votes for the GOP presidential nomination. "I am glad to hear of their coming," he reportedly said. "But they will have to wait a few minutes while I have another turn at bat."
  • The current tradition of presidents throwing out a pitch to a player or catcher has changed in recent decades. Previously, presidents would throw the ball "to or over the heads of players en masse, who dispersed to nab a prized souvenir."
  • Calvin Coolidge managed to dupe many people into thinking he was a baseball savant when, as Smith said in the interview, "he was a baseball ignoramus." Instead, he was helped by his wife, Grace Coolidge, who had been a rabid fan since childhood and was an official scorer for her collegiate baseball team.
  • Richard Nixon's knowledge of baseball was encyclopedic and his joy for the game immense. At a 1969 All-Star gala, Nixon regaled a crowd with his knowledge of the players and anecdotes from the past about them. Hank Aaron remarked that Nixon "knows more about baseball than some of the people in the game."
  • Years after his presidential loss in 1960, and before his 1968 victory, Nixon was in fact asked to head the baseball players' union. Nixon declined because he would have had to stay out of partisan politics and likely would not have run for president in 1968. The nation's history would, of course, have been vastly different had he made a different decision.

• Curt Smith website - http://www.curtsmithusa.com/

  Curt Smith is a newspaper columnist, award-winning radio commentator, Upstate New York political analyst, and acclaimed author, his seventeenth and newest book The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House. Smith also wrote more speeches than anyone else for George H. W. Bush during and after his 1989-93 Presidency. The New York Times terms Curt’s work “the high point of Bush familial eloquence.” Adds Chicago Cubs radio Voice Pat Hughes: “He is [also] simply one of the best baseball historians ever.”
  Smith’s regular column for GateHouse Media is available to its newspapers around the country. He is also a columnist for Jewish World Review’s Political Mavens.com and Major League Baseball’s web site MLBblog.com. Smith has analyzed politics for numerous Upstate radio and television outlets; appears regularly on such syndicated shows as Beyond the Beltway; and is Senior Lecturer of English at the University of Rochester, teaching Public Speaking and Presidential Rhetoric from Franklin Roosevelt to Donald Trump. In addition, he advises its English Department’s intern program.
  The State University of New York at Geneseo alumnus began his career as a Gannett reporter, speechwriter for former Texas Governor John B. Connally, The Saturday Evening Post senior editor, and then senior Cabinet speechwriter in the Reagan Administration. In 1989, he joined the Bush White House, writing the 41st President’s “Just War” Persian Gulf address, Nixon and Reagan Libraries dedication, Margaret Thatcher Medal of Freedom address, and speech aboard the USS Arizona memorial site on Pearl Harbor’s 50th anniversary. Smith also wrote Bush’s eulogy to Ronald Reagan at Washington’s National Cathedral.
  Leaving the White House, Smith headed the former president’s 1993-97 speech staff. He keynoted a conference on Bush at his Library at Texas A&M University, the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, and Great Fenway Park Writers Series; addressed the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR); and hosted Smithsonian Institution, Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and XM Satellite Radio series. Smith co-wrote the highly-rated ESPN TV 1994-95 series, Voices of The Game, based upon his book, the title now often shorthand for baseball radio/television. He also helped research ABC/ESPN’s SportsCentury.
  From 2003-12, Smith hosted the popular National Public Radio Rochester, NY affiliate Perspectives on outlet WXXI. Associated Press and the New York Broadcasting Association voted his commentary “the best in New York State.” Among programs he hosted on local or Statewide radio/TV were Perfectly Clear, Talking Point, The Curt Smith Show, and Voices of The Game, at one time or another interviewing David Birney, Lynne Cheney, Bob Costas, Garth Fagan, Mark Gearan, Larry Lucchino, David Maraniss, Jon Meacham, George Mitchell, Robert Merrill, Al Roker, Louis Rukeyser, and George Will.
  Increasingly turning to writing books, Smith’s include 2018’s The Presidents and the Pastime; The History of Baseball and the White House; George H. W. Bush: Character at the Core; Mercy! A Celebration of Fenway Park’s Centennial Told Through Red Sox Radio and TV: A Talk in the Park: Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story; The Voice: Mel Allen’s Untold Story; Voices of Summer; What Baseball Means to Me; Storied Stadiums; Our House; Windows on the White House; Of Mikes and Men; The Red Sox Fan’s Little Book of Wisdom; The Storytellers; Long Time Gone; and America’s Dizzy Dean in addition to Voices of The Game.
  Recent book essays include The Memoir as Art, Greatest Presidential Speeches, and 32 Greatest TV/Film Presidential Portraits, and for Cambridge University’s The Cambridge Companion to Baseball, the National Museum of American Jewish History’s Changing Dreams, and 14 books in SABR’s series on years/teams. Smith has also written, for among others, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and The Washington Post – and appeared on such networks as ABC Nightline, BBC, CBS This Morning, CNN, ESPN, Fox News, MSNBC, History Channel, Mutual Radio, and Radio America.
  Smith has been named among the State University of New York’s “Outstanding Alumni” and to the select Judson Welliver Society of former White House speechwriters. He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame Ford C. Frick committee, choosing a yearly broadcast inductee, and the National Radio Hall of Fame committee. Smith joined the University of Rochester faculty in 1999. He lives with his wife Sarah and their two children in Upstate New York.

QUOTED: "informative and amusing, but readers hoping for a brisk and engaging history of the relationship between baseball and the presidency will be disappointed."

Smith, Curt: THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PASTIME

Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Smith, Curt THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PASTIME Univ. of Nebraska (Adult Nonfiction) $29.95 6, 1 ISBN: 978-0-8032-8809-6
An exhaustive look at the relationship between the chief executive of the United States and baseball.
A young John Adams played a precursor of baseball called "one old cat." Theodore Roosevelt had no use for the game, preferring football. Young Donald Trump was skilled enough to merit visits from scouts for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. From George Washington to Barack Obama, baseball and its antecedents have coexisted with the highest political office in the land. Smith (English/Univ. of Rochester), a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush and the author of Voices of the Game (1987) and George H.W. Bush: Character at the Core (2014), among other books, chronicles the relationship in considerable detail. The author provides many interesting stories and anecdotes. Legendary Washington Senators pitcher Walter "Big Train" Johnson once missed a no-hitter when a line drive hit the secretary of the Senate--who was standing behind outfield ropes frequently deployed at the time for sold-out games--and fell in for a hit. First lady Grace Coolidge was an avid fan of the game. In 1934, three New York City major league teams imposed a five-year radio ban, afraid that few would pay to attend a ballgame when they could hear it for free. Ronald Reagan and legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully lived on the same street in Pacific Palisades, California. Yet these contributions are compromised by several of Smith's stylistic idiosyncrasies, including repeated use of the first-person, extensive quotes, references to his own text ("as chapter five will show," "as noted earlier," etc.), and awkward directives to readers. Furthermore, the book is simply too long: Smith seemingly details every pennant race and World Series from William Howard Taft to Obama, no matter the connection to the president in office at the time.
Informative and amusing, but readers hoping for a brisk and engaging history of the relationship between baseball and the presidency will be disappointed.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Smith, Curt: THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PASTIME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375206/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c36a017c. Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375206

"Smith, Curt: THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PASTIME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375206/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c36a017c. Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.

• Sport in American History
  https://ussporthistory.com/2018/09/01/review-of-presidents-and-the-pastime/
  Word count: 1273

  QUOTED: "The Presidents and the Pastime is smartly written, and while long at times, still a smooth read. Smith writes in a conversational tone that sports fans and historians can appreciate."

  Review of Presidents and the Pastime
  catariail / 01 September 2018
  Smith, Curt. The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Pp. 469. Bibliography. $29.95 hardback.
  Reviewed by Bob D’Angelo
  Politics and baseball are a delicious mixture. Curt Smith knows how to create a satisfying recipe.
  Smith, 67, a senior lecturer of English at the University of Rochester, explains why most presidents have viewed baseball as the Great American Game, forever tied to the Great American Dream. From George Washington (who allegedly played catch with an aide during the Revolutionary War), to Donald Trump (who played baseball at New York Military Academy), America’s chief executive has had some connection to the game.

  University of Nebraska Press, 2018
  Stories about presidents and well-known baseball anecdotes are part of the charm in The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House. Smith, who is a columnist for Gatehouse Media and has written pieces for in Newsweek and The New York Times, has been a baseball reader’s go-to guy in broadcasting history. He has written seventeen books, including memorable works about baseball broadcasters Vin Scully (Pull Up a Chair) and Mel Allen (The Voice), baseball broadcasters in general (Voices of the Game and The Storytellers) and football announcers (Of Mikes and Men). Smith also tapped his experiences as a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush to write a book about the forty-first president (Character at the Core).
  Smith dusts off some old baseball chestnuts, but also adds some new information. He does not give presidents individual chapters until Franklin D. Roosevelt, and deservedly so, since chief executives before him were sporadic attendees at baseball games. And yet, he uncovers what might be the most interesting fact of the book. While baseball intrigued Abraham Lincoln, it surprisingly obsessed his successor, Andrew Johnson. Relegated in history as a dour and petulant politician who barely escaped an impeachment conviction, Johnson nevertheless made history on September 18, 1866, when he became the first president to attend an organized baseball game. Twenty-six years later, Benjamin Harrison became the first president to watch a major-league game as Washington lost to Cincinnati.
  Calvin Coolidge sounded knowledgeable about the game, but it was his wife who was the true baseball fan, Smith writes. Grace Coolidge had loved the game as a youth, was the official scorekeeper for the University of Vermont baseball team and kept a “perfect scorecard” during the 1924 World Series when the Washington Senators played the New York Giants. Harry S Truman was the most versatile president to throw out the first ball on Opening Day, Smith writes, tossing it left-handed one season, right-handed in another, and using both arms in a third.
  Smith hits his stride with the chapter on Roosevelt, who he calls “The Champ.” Longtime readers of Smith will notice his penchant for hanging nicknames on his subjects; in previous books he refers to Allen as “The Voice,” and Scully as “The Franchise.” The Roosevelt chapter introduces the reader to Smith’s experience working in the White House; he knows what went on and how aides inside and out of the presidential mansion affect policy. Roosevelt and baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, loathed one another, but Senators owner Clark Griffith kept the feathers of both sworn enemies unruffled by his actions as baseball’s “unofficial DC lobbyist,” (p. 83).
  The most interesting chapter involved the president who was truly a sports fan — not casually, but one with a deeply ingrained love for games, particularly baseball. Richard M. Nixon picked his own dream All-Star teams (American and National Leagues, 1925-1945 and 1945 to 1970) and once gave a baseball soliloquy on Air Force One that CBS White House correspondent Dan Rather called “one of the strange and memorable conversations to which I have been privy.” Instead of answering questions about Vietnam, Nixon talked about what kind of trade value Washington Senators first baseman Mike Epstein had, noting that his Jewish heritage would make him “a very good draw in New York.” Smith writes about the gala event Nixon hosted before the 1969 All-Star Game in Washington, D.C., noting that players, old-timers and guests “were astounded at Nixon’s memory and his interest” in baseball” (p. 214). Other chapters are just as compelling, as Smith blends his baseball knowledge with history. He also adds some perspective as a presidential speechwriter from 1989 to 1993, explaining what was expected of him in speeches Bush gave about Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio when he awarded them the President’s Award.
  Ronald Reagan was another president who loved sports and had a history with it. He was the first president to invite the World Series champions to the White House; the first president to host a team in the White House was Chester Alan Arthur in 1883. Reagan also sat in the broadcast booth with Harry Caray in 1988, joking that “in a few months I’m going to be out of work and thought I might as well audition.” (p. 295). Other Smith observations: Reagan’s presidency wrote a long-playing score (p. 300) Bill Clinton was “the most masterly politician to take the oath since Lyndon Johnson.” (p. 350).
  The elder Bush was “likely the most non-partisan president” since Dwight D. Eisenhower (p. 311), while Ike relished his role as baseball’s “avuncular and egalitarian host” (p. 136). And Truman saw the most games of any president (sixteen), while William Howard Taft visited ballparks fourteen times. Taft also is the only president to see a game from each league in the same city — on the same day. He did it in St. Louis on May 4, 1910, visiting the Cardinals to watch their first two innings, and then saw the Browns and Cleveland battle to a 3-3, fourteen-inning tie.
  As is his custom, Smith does not use end notes, although he certainly draws his information from many sources, including three of his own books. The most endearing source in the book’s bibliography is the notation for C. Fred Bush, “Edited slightly by Barbara Bush.” Smith’s bibliography, as one might expect, provides a cross-section of sports and history sources. It is an interesting lineup that includes H.R. Haldeman, George Plimpton, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Bob Uecker and Robert Caro. Presidential works also dot the bibliography, including books written by George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Truman.
  The Presidents and the Pastime is smartly written, and while long at times, still a smooth read. Smith writes in a conversational tone that sports fans and historians can appreciate. The only time he breaks into reverence is when he talks about the elder Bush, his boss for four years. His prose is sometimes wry, at times sly, and even dry in places. But Smith has produced a balanced view of the presidents’ interaction with baseball that is easy to digest.
  Bob D’Angelo was a sports journalist and sports copy editor for more than three decades and is currently a digital national content editor for Cox Media Group. He received his master’s degree in history from Southern New Hampshire University in May 2018. He is the author of Never Fear: The Life & Times of Forest K. Ferguson Jr. (2015), reviews books on his blog, Bob D’Angelo’s Books & Blogs, and hosts a sports podcast channel on the New Books Network.

• The Guy Who Reviews Sports Books
  http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/2018/04/review-of-presidents-and-pastime.html
  Word count: 754

  QUOTED: "This book is rich with so many stories, it is one that is very hard to put down. Baseball fans, history buffs and political junkies will all love this book."

  Monday, April 9, 2018
  Review of "The Presidents and the Pastime"

  When a book far exceeds my expectations, I find it harder to write a review because I want to share so much of the book that just a short review won't do the book justice. This is one of those books. There is so much good information and it shares so many wonderful stories that to tell them all would almost be re-writing the entire book. It is with that in mind that I share a few thoughts about the upcoming book, "The Presidents and the Pastime."

  Title/Author:
  “The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House” by Curt Smith

  Tags:
  Baseball, professional, history, politics

  Publish date:
  June 1, 2018

  Length:
  496 pages

  Rating:
  5 of 5 stars (outstanding)

  Review:
  Two of the most American of institutions are the Presidency and the game of baseball. They have been intertwined together for over a century – from Abraham Lincoln playing “town ball” to Barack Obama writing “Go Sox!” in the visitor book at the Baseball Hall of Fame, there are many stories of what the game has meant to Presidents. They are captured in this wonderful book by Curt Smith, a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush.

  Every story that has been passed down through the generations is shared here. The book may disprove a myth such as William Howard Taft inventing the seventh inning stretch, which did not happen. It may explain in more detail about well-known events as Commissioner Landis did offer to suspend baseball before Franklin Roosevelt wrote the “Green Light Letter”. Or, the reader may learn a new fact like this: Calvin Coolidge was not the baseball person in his family as that was his wife Grace who was the scorekeeper at the University of Vermont and kept a perfect scorecard at each game she and her husband attended. Even bigger surprises may be found in the book, such as learning that Donald Trump was actually a good ballplayer.

  One other interesting fact is that the first President to attend a baseball game at any level was Andrew Johnson. Also in the nineteenth century, Benjamin Harrison became the first President to attend a professional baseball game. Once the calendar turns to the 20th century, Smith covers each president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump by describing not only that man’s connection to baseball, but also a little bit about each man’s term in office and the accomplishments.

  The book stays politically neutral with two notable exceptions. One is that Smith has much respect for his former boss as he looked fondly back at George H.W.Bush. The best baseball story for him is a “summit” he called in 1991 with Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio to honor the 50th anniversary of their achievements of 1941 – Williams hitting .406 and DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. Why this was called a “summit” is that after the speeches in the Rose Garden, the President and his two guests flew to Toronto in Air Force One to meet Canadian Prime Minister before that year’s All-Star game.

  The one area where there is really no neutrality is that Smith felt that when Washington D.C. lost its major league team (twice) Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon did not do enough to stop the teams from leaving. They were the men in the White House when the first team left after the 1960 season for Minnesota and the second team, an expansion team awarded to Washington to ease the pain, left after the 1971 season.

  This is just a very small sample of the many stories connecting baseball and the presidency. Even Presidents whose reputation for sport lies elsewhere, such at Theodore Roosevelt and Gerald Ford in football, the reader will lean how each president has a baseball connection. This book is rich with so many stories, it is one that is very hard to put down. Baseball fans, history buffs and political junkies will all love this book.

  I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

• Presidential History Blog
  https://featherfoster.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/presidents-and-the-pastime-a-book-review/
  Word count: 1067

  QUOTED: "Curt Smith is a journalist with a quirky but engaging writing style. ... Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House, is not for the casual reader. It is for readers who are passionate and knowledgeable about either baseball or the presidency. Hopefully both."

  Presidents and The Pastime: A Book Review
  Posted on October 1, 2018
  by Feather Schwartz Foster
  Curt Smith is a journalist with a quirky but engaging writing style. He is a major league expert in baseball history. He also knows presidential history. He was on staff with both Bush Presidents. All of this is very good.

  The Presidents and the Pastime, by Curt Smith
  That being said, Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House, is not for the casual reader. It is for readers who are passionate and knowledgeable about either baseball or the presidency. Hopefully both.
  Baseball used to be our national sport. Decades ago, the sports pages were filled with the glorious deeds of people like The Babe, The Man, The Yankee Clipper, The Duke, The Mick and The Say-Hey Kid. It was a very long list. Now, not so much.
  Smith has ferreted out a few obscure details about baseball’s antecedents, questions the Abner Doubleday connection (that few people really care about, since his name is so good), and even dredges up some kind words that POTUS Andrew Johnson once said about the sport, or how Grover Cleveland exchanged mild pleasantries with Buffalo semi-pro players back in the 1880s. But the book belongs to the 20th century.
  Our author is secretly (or maybe not so secretly) devastated by Theodore Roosevelt, who was about as interested in baseball as he was in ballet dancing. Not for him. Our national sport never caught on with one of our most national-minded and activity-driven leaders. Smith is hard pressed to forgive him.
  But with very few exceptions, the rest of the POTUS-gang loved, enjoyed, attended, knew-about, and participated in baseball, whether they grew up playing the game in school or sandlots or merely threw out the first pitch of the season, a tradition started by TR’s successor, Big Bill Taft.
  Wilson loved baseball, and managed his college team. Harding played it as a boy. During that first Golden Age of baseball, Calvin Coolidge learned to like it superficially; his wife Grace was a fan from the get-go, and could keep the box-scores like a pro. They even invited Babe Ruth to the White House. Herbert Hoover managed his Stanford team, and respected the game for what it was.
  But the one Smith believes “saved” baseball for the generations, was Franklin Roosevelt. Crippled at 40 by polio, all sports became spectator sports for him. But FDR’s defining baseball moment was shortly after the US entered World War II. Baseball’s star players were enlisting. There was serious thought to cancelling the entire season, or perhaps season(s). According to Smith, despite momentous events and decisions, FDR immediately answered a letter from baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis, urging that major league baseball be continued. Considered “The Green Light Letter,” FDR believed our national pastime was essential to the spirit/morale of the country. He was right. Everybody went to the games, and the men all wore suits and ties and hats! And they loved the B-team players as much as they had loved the stars now in military uniform. Had the season been cancelled, baseball might never have recovered.
  Nearsighted Truman enjoyed the game, but his athletically-inclined wife Bess liked it almost as much as Grace Coolidge. Ike played baseball as a boy in Kansas, but sports injuries sidelined team sports, and he took up golf. Nevertheless, the second Golden Age of baseball was an “Ike event.” A whole decade of it!
  Jack Kennedy enjoyed baseball. Both Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter were only interested in politics, but summoned up mild boyhood enthusiasm. Jerry Ford was an all-around athlete, who played baseball as a boy, and enjoyed all team sports.
  But when he comes to Dick Nixon, who, with baseball as a channel to his more private side, becomes human, likable, and even a sympathetic man. He probably knew more about baseball than any POTUS. The 1969 Amazin’ Mets was a World Series capstone not only for Nixon, but for practically all baseball lovers. (I was living in NYC at the time; a bi-league Yankee/Mets fan, so I know!!!)
  Then, of course, there was Reagan-The-Gipper. He loved baseball. He loved all things American, and baseball personified America. The author tells a cute story about Reagan, in his movie-days, starring as early baseball figure Grover Cleveland Alexander. When one “presidential” conversation led to a discussion of Grover Cleveland, Reagan commented that “he played him in the movie.” Wrong guy.
  Bill Clinton and Barack Obama liked baseball well enough, and no doubt played it growing up. But Bush Leaguers 41 and 43 are core baseball guys, including “43” having been a major league owner.
  So much for the POTUS side of the book. The baseball side is an i-dotter-t-crosser trove of baseball stats, stuff, nonsense and good trivia stories. A little heavy-handed on stadium details and numbers that few people really care about, but full of names like Goose and Ducky, Pepper and PeeWee, as well as the well known DiMag and Jackie, Ted and Yaz. Full of Babe-isms, Dizzy-isms, Casey-isms, Yogi-isms and all the tidbits that true aficionados go crazy for. They don’t make ‘em like that any more.
  Bottom line. You really DO need to know BBall to get the real effect of POTUS/Baseball. Modern players don’t seem to inspire the devotion. Maybe too much money and too little fun. The new stadium names reflect the sponsors not the teams, and it is hard to remember who plays where. Baseball is no longer the sport we Boomers once knew. For all its attractions, LA can never replace Brooklyn. And for sure, not a Brooklyn fan.
  Whether Curt Smith intended it as such or not, this really-delightful book is for us.
  Thanks for the memories.

  The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House
  by Curt Smith
  University of Nebraska Press, 2018
  ISBN: 978-0-8032-8809-6

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