--- title: Donald Trump and Presidential First Pitches From History description: The Opening Day ritual dates back to 1910, but Trump has decided to skip it this year. Here's a look back at how the tradition began. canonical: https://time.com/4716562/trump-baseball-first-pitch-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-29T19:01:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T12:22:11.471Z article:section: History og:title: President Trump Breaks Tradition By Skipping First Pitch og:description: The Opening Day ritual dates back to 1910 og:url: https://time.com/4716562/trump-baseball-first-pitch-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd12c91d106733b51/6988c074a988ca4ea16bb83d/trump1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up sign after throwing out the c og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Breaks Tradition By Skipping First Pitch twitter:description: The Opening Day ritual dates back to 1910 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd12c91d106733b51/6988c074a988ca4ea16bb83d/trump1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Is Skipping Baseball's First Pitch Tradition. Here's How Past Presidents Fared by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) Mar 29, 2017 7:01 PM UTC  Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up sign after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the start of the second game of a day-night double header between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees at Fenway Park in 2006. Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up sign after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the start of the second game of a day-night double header between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees at Fenway Park in 2006.New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) Mar 29, 2017 7:01 PM UTC President Donald Trump has [reportedly decided](http://time.com/4716250/donald-trump-washington-nationals-mlb-opening-day/) not to throw out a ceremonial first pitch to start the 2017 baseball season — skipping a ritual that President Obama once [said](https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/mar/22/obama-cuba-visit-speech-live-day-two-havana) was one of the more stressful tasks a president faces. But, though the tradition dates back more than a century, it began, as so many traditions do, as a one-off idea that could have easily been forgotten by history. In 1955, [_Sports Illustrated_](http://www.si.com/vault/1955/04/18/621611/events--discoveries) explained how it all went down: --- > “” --- Taft was an notable baseball fan himself, and [said](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/exhibit/bwJCoiDknfnvJQ) that he hoped that having the “temporary first magistrate” — the president, that is — at a game would encourage other Americans to enjoy such “healthy amusement.” But _Sports Illustrated_ reported that, up until that point in 1955, President Wilson had been the biggest fan of the game and President Harding — who had once owned a team — “displayed the only real Presidential fireball.” The tradition has not continued uninterrupted for 107 years — for example, [as Josh Leventhal writes in his history of baseball](https://books.google.com/books?id=u2mrBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA157&dq=william+howard+taft+1910+first+pitch&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQhp%5Fp6vvSAhXE7SYKHRtqBEoQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=william%20howard%20taft%201910%20first%20pitch&f=false), it hasn’t always seemed appropriate in times of tragedy: the 1912 pitch was thrown by the Vice President rather than Taft himself because the _Titanic_ had only just sunk, and FDR skipped the game during the World War II years. Some presidents have chosen to throw the pitch for only some of their years in office, and Jimmy Carter opted to do so for the World Series rather than Opening Day. Over the years, the norm evolved from a toss from the grandstand to an on-the-field throw. But one thing has remained the same over the years — a phenomenon that the Washington _Post_ put into words in 1953 when Eisenhower almost missed Opening Day, _Sports Illustrated_ reported. Having the President there to throw out that pitch may not matter for the score, but, “It lets the entire nation know it is now time to play ball.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4716562/trump-baseball-first-pitch-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4716562/trump-baseball-first-pitch-history/"},"headline":"President Trump Is Skipping Baseball's First Pitch Tradition. 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