From grand slams to irritable umpires, Presidents across the centuries have enjoyed playing or watching the good old, all-American sport of baseball. The Presidents of the United States have embraced baseball since George Washington played an early version of the game called “rounders” with his men while passing leisure time at Valley Forge.

The nation’s second president, John Adams, also played an early version he called “ball and bat,” a modification of the English game of “rounders.” One can only assume that as a fatherly activity, he played the sport with his son and our sixth President, John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson amused himself as a child playing a game called, “one old cat,” which is also an early form of American baseball.

Abraham Lincoln as well played an early version of baseball, which is described as a game that fell between “rounders” and “cricket.” He loved the game so much that in 1860 he was featured in an editorial cartoon wearing a baseball uniform with a ball and bat along with other presidential candidates John Bell, John Breckenridge, and Stephen Douglas. Diving even deeper into Lincoln’s love for the sport, he had an actual baseball field called the “White Lot” constructed behind the White House for ball games while he was in office.

With the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson took control and continued Lincoln’s love of the sport by labeling baseball as “our national game.” When he was invited to see the first baseball game played between different states, he gave the entire White House staff time off work to attend the game. Johnson arranged chairs for his staff along the first base line of the “White Lot,” an area that was at the time only partially shadowed by an unfinished Washington Monument. Today this area is known as the “Ellipse” and during the early spring lively White House staffers can be seen playing softball games here in the shadow of the fully erect, 555-foot Washington Monument.

It wasn’t until our 27th President, William Taft, that our nation’s long baseball and Presidential tradition of throwing the first pitch began. President Taft threw the first pitch of the season on April 14, 1910 to the Washington Senator’s Opening Day pitcher, Walter Johnson. The next day it was no surprise that Taft’s image was front and center on every sports page.