HEADLINERS

The President Appears at a Ballgame

July 28, 2015

On Thursday, June 17, 2010, I was having lunch in a restaurant near my home in Manhattan with Bill Marovitz, a friend from Chicago, where I was born and raised. Marovitz, of medium build and with a thick thatch of sandy hair, is a former Illinois state senator and possesses a broad smile that surely helped him get elected several times in his Gold Coast district of lakefront Chicago. Marovitz is friends with Jerry Reinsdorf, principal owner of the Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Bulls. When Marovitz was in the state senate, in 1988, he co-sponsored a bill to keep the White Sox in Chicago rather than, as team ownership threatened, to have the franchise moved to Tampa–St. Petersburg unless it would get a tax break on building a new ballpark. Marovitz was the political face of the bill, appearing on television on numerous occasions and being quoted in newspapers with, "Let's keep the White Sox where they belong, in Chicago. What's it say about a city that can't keep a valuable franchise like this big-league ballclub?"

And Marovitz meant it. He is a fervent sports fan, especially when it comes to the White Sox. (He had even been known to attend a play in a downtown theater while listening to a Sox game with a transistor radio earpiece glued to his ear.) And the bill allowing the use of public funds passed, narrowly, enabling the White Sox to build and finance their present ballpark, U.S. Cellular Field, across 35 Street from old Comiskey Park (now a parking lot). The passing of that bill most surely had something to do with Reinsdorf later smiling when Marovitz would come into his view. And they became very friendly.

"I'm going to D.C. tomorrow," Marovitz was now saying to me. "Strasburg is pitching against the White Sox tomorrow night and Jerry'll be there in a suite." Stephen Strasburg was the new pitching phenom for the Washington Nationals. "Why don't you join us? It'll be great."

"He invited you?" I said.

"Sure."

"I'd love to see Strasburg pitch, but if I'm going to sit in Reinsdorf's box, maybe you should ask him if it's okay. If it's not I still have my Lifetime Baseball Writer's card. I'll go down with you and sit in the press box. Been there before."

"No, I'll call Jerry. It'll be fine. I'll let him know you're coming with me."

In my 26 years as a sports columnist for The New York Times (retired in 2007), a writer for the paper wouldn't want to be caught dead — even worse, alive — in the suite or box of an owner of a team you were covering. It would have the odor of non-objectivity, of being bought off for a chance to hobnob with the swells, something that one could never be accused of while ensconced in the press box. A stringent policy against cozying up — or appearing to cozy up — to Movers and Shakers had been laid down for years by Times editors. I'd been gone from the paper for three years now, and, yes, career experiences are hard to shake, but I considered myself a free agent, and decided to take up Reinsdorf's — and Bill's — offer.

I had known Jerry Reinsdorf for 30 years, and had a good journalistic relationship with him. As for Strasburg, this would be only his third game in the major leagues. In the previous two games, starting both, he had struck out a total of 22 batters — a record start for a pitcher. Some baseball pundits were calling him the next Bob Feller or Bob Gibson, Hall of Fame fireballers. June 18 would be his second start in a home game. Like most baseball fans, Reinsdorf — who would be given a suite and adjoining box by the Nationals as is a league courtesy to a visiting team's owner — was surely eager to see the 21-year-old Strasburg pitch — and now the heralded rookie was going up against his team.

On the morning of June 18, Bill Marovitz and I met at Penn Station on Seventh Avenue and we took the Acela train to Washington, checking the newspapers for late news on the game and on Strasburg — and the weather. We had no need for rain.

As the train whizzed along through the New Jersey countryside and past towns that emerged however briefly outside the car window, I'm sure we talked about the previous two outings of Strasburg, the No. 1 pick in the major-league draft of 2009, who was a pitching marvel at San Diego State and in a brief minor-league career. In his major-league debut on June 8, 10 days before Bill and I boarded our train to Washington, Strasburg had struck out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates — including every batter in the starting lineup — only one strikeout short of the record for a rookie debut. His fastball was clocked as high as an astounding 100 mph. Strasburg's second outing five days earlier, against Cleveland, was only a bit less impressive, eight strikeouts in 5? innings. His won-lost record was now 2–0. "He was," wrote Sports Illustrated, "the most hyped and closely watched pitching prospect in major-league history." Perhaps an exaggeration, but name one pitcher more hyped and more closely watched. As I recall, the conversation went something like this:

"Doc Gooden of the Mets?" said Bill.

"Not quite like this in his first games, I don't think," I said.

"Bob Feller?"

"No TV in his day. And he played for Cleveland, not a big national newspaper story, either."

"Christy Mathewson?"

"Hardly even radio in his time. And the telegraph wouldn't have done the trick. When was the Pony Express, anyway?"

And thus the train rattled on to D.C. Trenton came and went. So did Philadelphia and Wilmington.

"Do you think Obama might show up for the game?" Bill mused. "He's a great White Sox fan, and a great baseball fan."

"Great sports fan. He loves basketball, still plays. I have friends who played with him at the East Bank Club."

"I worked out there with him — in the weight room! When he was in the Illinois Senate."

"Well, in basketball, a friend who has played with him there said that they close off the court and if you guard him too closely the Secret Service guys run out and push you back."

"Hadn't heard that," said Marovitz, with a chuckle. "Funny thing, when Obama was asked to throw out the first ball at the All-Star Game in St. Louis last year, MLB wanted him to wear a Cardinals jacket. He refused."

"Refused?"

"Yeah, he insisted on wearing a White Sox jacket. And that's what he wore."

"I remember him wearing the jacket."

"He threw out the first pitch at the Nationals opener in April, and wore the Nationals jacket — but he wore his White Sox cap — he had hid it in his glove."

"Doesn't give up."

"But I'll bet he's as curious about Strasburg as everyone else," said Bill. "Hey, Reinsdorf's even coming in from Chicago for the game."

"So?"

"So if Obama's in town I'd bet he'd...