Strathroy

By David Emery Popular memory has been unkind to William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, who surely would have wished to be remembered for something nobler than his weight. At 300 pounds, he is the heaviest chief executive on record. It's the rare biographical sketch that doesn't mention the giant bathtub – large enough to hold four average-sized men – specially built for him in the White House. Baseball history has accorded him somewhat more dignity, for it was Taft who launched the tradition of the presidential first pitch on the opening day of the season. The occasion was a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics on April 14, 1910 at Griffith Stadium. Umpire Billy Evans handed Taft the ball after the introduction of the rival managers and asked him to throw it over home plate. He graciously assented. Nearly every U.S. president since Taft (the sole exception being Jimmy Carter) has opened at least one season by tossing out the first ball. Legend has it Taft inspired another baseball tradition that same day, quite by accident. As the game wore on, the rotund, six-foot-two president reportedly grew uncomfortable in his small wooden seat. By the middle of the seventh inning he could bear it no longer and stood up to stretch his legs – whereupon everyone else in the stadium, thinking the president was about to exit, rose to show their respect. A few minutes later Taft returned to his seat, as did the rest of the crowd, and the "seventh-inning stretch" was born. A charming tale, but folklorists have a saying: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. Consider the story of Brother Jasper of Mary, F.S.C., the man credited with bringing baseball to Manhattan College in the late 1800s. Being the Prefect of Discipline as well as the coach of the team, it fell to Brother Jasper to "supervise" the student fans at every home game. On one particularly hot and muggy day in 1882 during the seventh inning against a semi-pro team called the Metropolitans, the Prefect noticed his charges becoming restless. To break the tension, he called a time-out and instructed everyone in the bleachers to stand up and unwind. It worked so well he began doing it at every game. The custom later spread to the major leagues (as the story goes) after the New York Giants were exposed to it while playing Manhattan College at exhibition games. That, too, is an appealing tale, but still falls short of being the final word on the subject. Historians have found a document written in 1869 describing what can only be described as a "seventh-inning stretch" 13 years before Brother Jasper's moment of inspiration. It's a letter written by Harry Wright of the Cincinnati Red Stockings. In it he makes the following observation about the behavior of the crowd during the course of every game: "The spectators all arise between halves of the seventh inning, extend their legs and arms and sometimes walk about. In so doing they enjoy the relief afforded by relaxation from a long posture upon hard benches." Truth be known, we have no idea exactly where and when the custom of the seventh-inning stretch began, but based on the evidence that exists it's doubtful it originated with William Howard Taft, or even Brother Jasper. What we do know is that it's at least as old as 1869, that it cropped up in various places afterward and that it eventually became a solid tradition. No record of the phrase "seventh-inning stretch" exists earlier than 1920, when the practice was apparently already 50 years old. Where history cannot tell the whole story, folklore arises to fill in the gaps.