Last week to mark the start of Major League Baseball’s shortened season, President Trump posted a video of himself having a catch on the lawn of the White House and announced he would be throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium on August 15.
WELCOME BACK BASEBALL! pic.twitter.com/dhLSfNkI7L
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2020
Trump, who previously threw out the first pitch to benefit the Jimmy Fund prior to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in Boston in 2006, has already backtracked on that plan and said he will no be able to make it to New York.
“Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the Yankees on August 15th,” he wrote on Twitter. “We will make it later in the season!”
There’s no way to know for sure, but there is a possibility Trump is backing out of taking the spotlight at Yankee Stadium because he doesn’t want to risk messing up on the mound and facing the subsequent mockery that Anthony Fauci had to deal with after flubbing the ceremonial first pitch of the MLB season last week in Washington D.C.
Anthony Fauci, First Pitch Mechanics. pic.twitter.com/QxszDQJDuu
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 23, 2020
Fauci told The Wall Street Journal that he had practiced for his first pitch by playing catch with a local high-schooler and that his arm had gotten tired. So, at the last minute, he decided the only thing he could do was try and throw a fastball.
“Instead of doing my normal motion of just lobbing the ball, which would’ve been the best thing to do, I thought: Oh, baby, I better put a lot of different oomph into it,” said the 79-year-old immunologist. “And I did. And you saw what happened.”
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