DID HE BOUNCE IT?

Forums: Sports, Obama, Mlb, Presidential Trivia, First Pitch
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Not that it has anything to do with his ability to serve as our president, but yes he did. What's more, his image makers knew he would as witnessed by the fact that Albert Pujols was positioned in front of home plate to receive Obama's fireball Very Happy

BTW - Pujols evidenced why he is arguably the best player in baseball by executing, out of position, a marvelous short hop catch that spared the President the ignominy of having his pitch roll to the backstop.

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=5573797

You have to watch the clip for about 15 seconds or so before Obama's athletic prowess are displayed.

Interestingly enough, this is not a clip from the FOX Sports broadcast which, instead, used a ridiculously inappropriate camera angle that just had to be intended to avoid a possible PR mess for Obama. Not complaining though. Any president deserves such respectful consideration. After all, they can't all have W's canon of an arm.

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Type: Question • Score: 12 • Views: 5,222 • Replies: 47

@Finn dAbuzz,

obama is a basketball guy.
he later said in the booth he'd never played baseball as a kid.

was impressed he wore jeans, sneakers and a chisox jacket.
he didn't look like the prez... he looked like a baseball fan...

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Interestingly enough, this is not a clip from the FOX Sports broadcast which, instead, used a ridiculously inappropriate camera angle that just had to be intended to avoid a possible PR mess for Obama.

Yeah, that reeks a bit of Mao swimming the Yangtze.

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@Region Philbis,

You don't have to have had played baseball to be able to throw.

To be fair, he's decent at basketball

http://burgherjon.blogspot.com/2009/02/just-how-good-is-obama-at-basketball.html

As usual, Bill Russell makes this clip.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

You don't have to have had played baseball to be able to throw.

i'd say you would have to have played a little in order to throw accurately in front of millions of people... especially if the throw was going to be scrutinized the next day...

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

90' - when we measured it out in our parking lot - is farther than I thought it would be.

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According to one source I found, President Obama is only the 4th President to throw out the 1st pitch in an all-star game. Kennedy, Nixon and Ford did that. I don't know where their pitches ended up.
Mr Ford played golf and there is a photo of my distant cousin Gene lying prone on the ground, with Ford bending over him after an errant tee shot bounced off Gene's forehead. Gene was a loyal Republican, so it was cool with him.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

OMG, I can public speak, I can dance in front of an audience, but I'd be scared shitless to throw a ball in front of a crowd. No joke, I think I had nightmares about having to play baseball when I was a kid.

If you hate my politics enough, you can rest assured that I'd never be president because I'd be too embarrassed to pitch a baseball.

T
K
O

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@Diest TKO,

Some more Presidential First Pitch Pictures..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/jul/15/obama-pitch-all-star-game

(I could bat ok as a kid playing softball in grammar school, but was not a swell pitcher..)

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@realjohnboy,

Quote:

90'

it's 60'-6" from mound to plate.
(it's 90' from plate to 2nd base)
looks like he chucked it ~ 59'-9" or so...

R(it didn't bounce)P

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He did okay. Hell, if he walked on water and pulled some rightwingnuts out of a swirling whirlpool and certain death, they'd be blogging the next day about how he doesn't seem to know how to swim.

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@snood,

...and yes, I know that's not an original joke. I'd cite the originator if I knew who it was - mebbe Jesse Jackson

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@snood,

well yeah but I hear Obama's a muslim terrorist/communist who comes from hawaii so he's not really an american and I've also heard he's "black."

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I for one am glad that Obama throws like a girl. It means that he was more focused on the problems of our nation than he was on practicing for his ASG pitch; as it should be.

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John Stewart wrote:

"If you're just going to make **** up about what happened, maybe you shouldn't do it while the videotape that contradicts you is playing."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/jon-stewart-mocks-fox-new_n_235276.html

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

Quote:
90'
it's 60'-6" from mound to plate.
(it's 90' from plate to 2nd base)

No, it's 90 feet between adjacent bases. To calculate the distance between home plate and second base, however, one would need to construct a right triangle, with the hypotenuse being the line between home plate and second base and the two remaining sides being the distance between home plate and first base (90 feet) and the distance between first base and second base (90 feet). Using the Pythagorean theorum, then, the distance between home plate and second base is approximately 127.27 feet.

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@ebrown p,

Clear shows he did NOT bounce it.

Never knew he was a lefty. Big surprise, huh? Wink

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/stadium/1108762092.jpg

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Well, I think it shows that the catcher did a great job making sure he didn't bounce it.

The catcher was in front of the base, and had to reach out pretty far towards the ground in order to keep the ball from bouncing.

If the catcher were in the correct position, it would have surely bounced.

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@maporsche,

Quote:

had to reach out pretty much as far as he could

... someone is stretching awfully far, and it isn't the catcher.

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@ebrown p,

I watched the video again, and edited my comments.

But you HAVE to admit that if the catcher didn't save him (and was in the correct position), he would have bounced it.

He did scoop it out of the dirt.

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DID HE BOUNCE IT?

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