Elisabeth Bumiller International Herald Tribune
Monday, April 18, 2005
WASHINGTON President George W. Bush's ceremonial first pitch at the home opener of the fledgling Washington Nationals last week was high and wide of home plate. In short, it was no match for the strike that Bush threw to start Game 3 of the World Series in Yankee Stadium when the World Trade Center lay in ruins in the fall of 2001.
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But his throw from the top of the mound - at a distance of 60 feet, or about 18 meters, on a glorious spring evening - was still a reminder that Bush, a former owner of the Texas Rangers and a self-described "junkball" pitcher at Yale, owes much in his life, if not the presidency itself, to baseball.
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When Bush was a child, the game was an obsession for him and a link to his father, a onetime captain and first baseman on the Yale team. When he was an adult, the game made him a multimillionaire, propelled his political career and now serves as an escape from the pressures of the White House. As Bush told sportswriters from The Washington Post, USA Today and The Washington Times last week, he spends "a fair amount of time" reading the box scores each day because it's "one way to take your mind off your job."
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Bush also told them that he started paying attention to the Nationals' lineup during spring training, that he keeps close track of Rangers games (and those of the Houston Astros and others) via his White House satellite dish and that while he doesn't know if he would have won the presidency without his experience in baseball, it was a "good question."
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/letter.html