President #41
By Kumar Nambiar, minor leaguer in the Oakland Athletics organization,@kumar4123
There are a few things that the 41st President of the United States and I have in common. No, it has nothing to do with me being or becoming presidential. The two of us both played for Yale Baseball. George H.W. Bush and me. On top of that, we both played on the most successful Yale Baseball teams. In 1947, the first-ever College World Series was held and the Yale Baseball team made it there, with the help of President Bush. He was the first baseman and the captain. One of the most famous pictures of President Bush is him in his Yale Baseball uniform standing next to Babe Ruth on Yale Field. Unfortunately, Yale Baseball hasn’t made it back to the College World Series since the late 1940s.
Before I stepped foot on campus, my collegiate baseball career began on a high note. During my senior year of high school, my future coaches at Yale emailed the incoming class of recruits about where our first collegiate game would be played. My first series in a Yale uniform was going to be at Texas A&M. Since New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located, is often too cold for baseball in early March, the team books an annual trip south to open up the season. Yale graduate President George H.W. Bush also had his presidential library on A&M’s campus. He had connected the two programs.
At A&M, we lost our season opener on Friday night, but there was so much excitement around the weekend that it didn’t matter. On Saturday morning, we took a tour of President Bush’s library, it was beautifully decorated, with pictures and objects from throughout his accomplished life. It even included a replica of the desk in the Oval Office. President Bush and his wife, Barbara, waited to greet the team at the end of the tour. He was in his wheelchair with his eyes closed as we entered and she was standing next to him. President Bush was alert and understood all of our questions, however his eyes never stayed open for very long. The man who wheeled him around told us he kept his eyes closed to conserve energy and reminded us that he was 91 years old. He was very eager to hear from us and learn about how Yale had changed over the years.
That afternoon when President Bush was wheeled out to the mound, the announcer shared the news that there were more than 7,300 fans in attendance. A new Texas A&M college baseball record. After he threw out the first pitch, which was really an underhand flip, the stadium erupted in applauses and cheers. It’s not every day that you get to see a President throw out the first pitch of a college baseball game. It was an experience, and a weekend, that I could never forget.
Now skip ahead to the end of my sophomore season. Our Yale team had just set a record for wins in a season with 34 and became the first Yale team to win two games in an NCAA Regional since… you guessed it, George H.W. Bush and his Yale team. This news made it to the Bush family, so they invited the team to their private summer estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. We had just returned to New Haven after our last game; many of my teammates were booking flights home when we got the news but everyone happily put their plans aside. We were going to see President Bush and Barbara again.
I remember the day clearly, June 8th, 2017. It was a long drive and we had some issues with the bus but we made it in just under five hours. Unsurprisingly, the security was pretty heavy and there was no phone service. The first thing we did after getting off the bus was cross paths with Barbara, it was her 92nd birthday. We got to sing her Happy Birthday, one of the highlights of the day. I don’t think many baseball teams have gotten to sing to a former First Lady.
The view on the compound was stunning. A bunch of homes in a little community right next to the ocean. The only thing stopping the waves was a barrier of rocks. Most of the buildings were homes, but others were used for various types of meetings – probably pretty important ones. The most memorable part was the living room of the main house on the complex. Covering the walls were pictures of a younger President H.W. Bush posing with leaders from all over the world. There was also a massive window that overlooked the ocean. Looking through it, I almost felt like I was standing in the middle of the Atlantic. The room was breathtaking, as was everything on the compound.
At the end of the day, President Bush sat with his eyes closed again and listened to the details about our successful season. He later handed each of us a Presidential pin with his signature engraved on it. I wasn’t sure if he remembered us from A&M but he was thrilled to hear about how the program had done that year. It probably brought back some memories of his own.
The following year both President Bush and Barbara passed away. It was tough news to swallow. The two of them had been so generous to Yale Baseball. He joined the Yale and the Texas A&M communities to create a very special connection that weekend in College Station, then brought us to their home in Kennebunkport, Maine to celebrate our team’s success. Baseball has taken me to some remarkable places and has given me stories I will have forever. We were included in such a small part of President Bush and Barbara’s life, but they made such an impact on me, and probably so many others in this world, that we will never forget.