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On Friday in this space, we reported President Trump’s announcement that he would be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium before the August 15 game between the Yanks and the Boston Red Sox.
Yesterday, POTUS announced that is postponing that pitch. He cited his “strong focus” on the coronavirus pandemic as the reason, but should we accept that at face value?
Nope.
GreenSportsBlog opined that it was a big mistake for the Yankees to invite President Trump to throw out that first pitch, given that he is “the worst environmental President by far”.
Why would the 27-time World Series champion Yankees, who last year became the first major North American sports team to sign on to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, honor the President who announced he was pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement? Launched by UN Climate Change in late 2018, a crucial tenet of the Framework is to bring signatories’ greenhouse emissions in line with the tenets of Paris.
The President sidelined himself on Sunday, citing his “strong focus” on the coronavirus, as the reason.
This curious explanation prompted another question this morning: Did Yankees management actually invite him to throw out that pitch?
GSB is not buying it.
One would think that a Presidential first pitch would warrant an official announcement from the Yankees. We did not find any evidence of a press release — or any other kind of statement — from the club on Friday or Saturday. There also has been no official response from the Yankees to the President turning down the so-called invitation. Club President Randy Levine — who President Trump said offered the invitation — also has not commented publicly.
New York Yankees President Randy Levine has not to date confirmed that the club invited President Trump to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium on August 15. The President reversed course on Sunday, turning down the alleged invitation, saying he will instead “focus strongly” on the coronavirus (Photo credit: John Minchillo/AP)
So, assuming that the President made the invitation up — and GSB is bigly in that camp — this would not be the first time that he has not been truthful in his public statements since taking office. According to a July 13 piece in The Washington Post, President Trump crossed the 20,000 lie threshold.
Why would POTUS make up an invitation to throw out a first pitch at Yankee Stadium?
GSB thinks he acted out because he was angry that the Washington Nationals invited Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, to throw out the first pitch before the high-profile Opening Night game between the Yankees and Nationals in Washington. Trump has at times publicly doubted and downplayed Fauci’s expertise after the doctor has repeatedly sounded the alarm about about the coronavirus pandemic.
The scariest thing about all of this is that the likelihood that a President of the United States made up an invitation to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game is somehow seen as…normal.
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