As the 2020 Major League Baseball season began last week, more than three and a half months late due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump celebrated the occasion by playing catch on the White House lawn with longtime New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera and a group of Little League baseball players.
President Trump marked baseball’s delayed Opening Day by playing catch with pitching legend @MarianoRivera https://t.co/EXgTgjHIzY pic.twitter.com/FaXT66xkAi
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 24, 2020
WELCOME BACK BASEBALL! pic.twitter.com/dhLSfNkI7L
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2020
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Across town, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases described by Ann Coulter as a “liberal sex symbol,” attempted to throw out the first pitch at the first Washington Nationals game of the season. To put it mildly, he missed the mark.
Not surprisingly, many on social media took note of Fauci’s horrendous first pitch Thursday. Conservative activist Benny Johnson took to Twitter to joke that “Fauci’s first pitch was about as accurate and disciplined as his preparations and predictions for the China virus.”
Fauci’s first pitch was about as accurate and disciplined as his preparations and predictions for the China Virus
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) July 23, 2020
Trump’s celebration of the 2020 MLB opening day comes just three weeks before he is scheduled to throw out the first pitch at a New York Yankees home game taking place on Aug. 15 when the team hosts arch-rivals the Boston Red Sox. This will not be the first time that the president has thrown out the first pitch at a baseball game.
As a private citizen, Donald Trump threw out the first pitch in September 2004 for a game hosted by the Somerset Patriots, a team in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, that plays in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which is unaffiliated with Major League Baseball.
According to Lancaster Online, the website of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, newspaper LNP Lancaster, prior to throwing out the first pitch with impressive accuracy, Trump landed on the center field aboard a private helicopter.
Now that Trump has assumed the role of president of the United States, it might make sense for him to land on the field at Yankee Stadium in Marine One.
Who else thinks President Trump should do this again when he throws out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium? pic.twitter.com/WpARLrcN5P
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) July 23, 2020
If the reaction to Mariano Rivera’s appearance at the White House is any indication, the Yankees are sure to receive criticism from the left for inviting the president to throw out the first pitch at one of their games. BizPac Review compiled a collection of Twitter reactions expressing outrage that the pitcher would dare to associate himself with Trump.
Prior to heading out to the White House lawn to play catch with the Little Leaguers, Rivera appeared at the president’s White House press briefing on the coronavirus. This made Rivera an immediate target of liberal criticism. For example, comedian Wanda Sykes sarcastically jabbed at Rivera by referring to him as an “epidemiologist.”
Nice to see Trump finally taking on the Covid 19 pandemic. At his briefing, he brought in the great epidemiologist Mariano Rivera.
— Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes) July 23, 2020
Tech startup lawyer Jamie O’Grady was so horrified that Rivera would make an appearance with Trump that he removed him from his list of “top-5 favorite athletes of all time.” O’Grady described it as “incredibly sad” that a “self-made immigrant” decided to “inexplicably align himself with Trump.”
Mariano Rivera *was* one of my top-5 favorite athletes of all time. Having met him, he’s warm, decent, and kind. Incredibly sad for a self-made immigrant to inexplicably align himself with Trump.
— Jamie 😷’Grady ⚡ (@JamieOGrady) July 23, 2020
If history is any guide, Rivera’s critics will have little success in their efforts to force him into submission. During an appearance on “Fox and Friends” last year, Rivera explained that Trump “was a friend of mine before he became president.”
Will you be watching President Trump throw out the first pitch at the Aug. 15 Yankees game?
“So, because he’s president will I turn my back on him? No, I respect him. I respect what he does and I believe he’s doing the best for the United States of America,” Rivera said.
In an era of division, Americans of all political persuasions should be able to turn to America’s pastime as a source of unity. However, Major League Baseball, like other professional sports organizations, has chosen to take sides in the culture war by propagating the propaganda of the Black Lives Matter movement.
If the MLB adopted the Mariano Rivera approach by focusing on the love of the game rather than shoving far-left agendas down the throats of loyal spectators, maybe America would not be such a divided country.
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