Grant & Baseball

Ulysses S. Grant, in a photograph circa 1880, attended the first National League game of the franchise that would become known as the New York Giants.

The story of Grant and baseball can be considered in various ways. There is their shared context. The emergence of Grant coincided with that of baseball, and both with the explosive growth of the United States as it made its way toward being an urbanized nation and a world power.

During Grant’s lifetime, the leisure activity of baseball evolved from a boy’s game, to a leisure activity of gentlemen’s clubs, all the way to big leagues and big commerce. Baseball’s rules, standards, and positions were codified, refined, and specialized, and the sport was commercialized. Similar processes were accelerating throughout American industry and culture. In this sense, baseball can be seen as a reflection of the accelerating industrial, urban evolution of the United States itself, as many observers have noted. It was a process that Grant’s victories in the Civil War helped to set in motion.

Paradoxically, Grant watched a segregated ball game on that day in 1883. The National Association of Base Ball Players in 1868 excluded “colored persons” from the sport, although some participated in 1878 and in 1884. Segregation would continue in the major leagues until 1947.

According to the Baseball Almanac.com, President Abraham Lincoln played baseball with kids on the White House grounds, and had a baseball field constructed there.

Grant’s immediate predecessor, Andrew Johnson, was a particular baseball enthusiast while president. He attended local games of the original Washington Nationals, and welcomed that team and the Brooklyn Atlantics to the Executive Mansion on August 30, 1865.

The Baseball Almanac describes this as the first visit of organized (not openly professional) baseball clubs to the Executive Mansion.

In April 1883, President Chester A. Arthur became the first president to welcome a major league team, the Cleveland Blues (National League), to the Executive Mansion.

In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison became the first sitting president to attend a major league game.