George W. Bush was never more afraid than when he stood on the mound at Yankee Stadium on October 30, 2001. It had been 48 days since 9/11, and he had not been more nervous then. Nor would he be more nervous during Hurricane Katrina, or the 2007 financial collapse. It was there, on the mound, that he was his most afraid.
"Your adrenaline isn't surging during decisions," Bush told Grantland. "Decisions were very deliberate. I listened to a lot of good people, and when I made up my mind, I made up my mind. And I feel good about making those decisions based upon what I thought was in the best interest of the country."
But then there was that first pitch — and he didn't want to bounce it.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
[...] He thought about the pitch itself. He thought about the other time he'd thrown a first pitch as president, at a Brewers game. He'd put it in the dirt. His dad had bounced it when he was president too. Both he and his dad had played baseball at Yale — the senior Bush was team captain, the younger never made varsity. And bouncing it had been mortifying. "We're pretty competitive people," he said.He hadn't had much time to prepare, squeezing in a game of catch with his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, in the South Lawn to loosen up. So he knew he faced the prospect of embarrassment in front of a stadium of people who hadn't voted for him, and more.As he walked out to the mound, wearing an FDNY pullover over a flak jacket, as the voice of Bob Sheppard — "Ladies and gentlemen" — faded into the great sound of the crowd, he had a sense that something more was at stake than pride.
Read the entire piece over at Grantland, and check out the ESPN documentary on Bush's first pitch, below. Jeva Lange
-
Israel: Losing the American publicFeature A recent poll finds American support for Israel's military action in Gaza has fallen from 50% to 32%
-
Unmaking AmericansFeature Trump is threatening to revoke the citizenship of foreign-born Americans. Could he do that?
-
EPA: A bonfire of climate change regulationsFeature The Environmental Protection Agency wants to roll back its 'endangerment finding,' a ruling that lets the agency regulate carbon emissions
-
Nobody seems surprised Wagner's Prigozhin died under suspicious circumstancesSpeed Read
-
Western mountain climbers allegedly left Pakistani porter to die on K2Speed Read
-
'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governorSpeed Read
-
Los Angeles city workers stage 1-day walkout over labor conditionsSpeed Read
-
Mega Millions jackpot climbs to an estimated $1.55 billionSpeed Read
-
Bangladesh dealing with worst dengue fever outbreak on recordSpeed Read
-
Glacial outburst flooding in Juneau destroys homesSpeed Read
-
Scotland seeking 'monster hunters' to search for fabled Loch Ness creatureSpeed Read
