Baseball mourns Reagan's passing

06/05/2004 9:09 PM ET Baseball mourns Reagan's passing 40th president had extensive ties to the game By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

President Reagan throws out the ceremonial first pitch at Wrigley Field on Sept. 30, 1988. (Charles Tasnadi/AP)

Major League Baseball, like the rest of the nation, lost a dear friend and fan on Saturday with the death in California of President Ronald Reagan at 93. As a young man, the 40th president re-created Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts and later became an actor, who starred in the 1952 baseball movie "The Winning Team," about the life and times of Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander.

He was fondly remembered on Saturday by Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone for his love of the game. Stone also recalled the few innings of baseball Reagan broadcast on television at Chicago's Wrigley Field near the end of the 1988 season, which also coincided with the conclusion of his second term as president. A few months after leaving office, Reagan did an inning of the 1989 All-Star Game at Anaheim alongside the Dodgers' immortal voice Vince Scully.

"What I truly remember most about him that day is that he was a genuinely nice guy. There were no pretensions," said Stone, when reached by telephone on Saturday in Chicago, where the Cubs defeated the Pirates, 6-1, in the Friendly Confines.

"I got to sit in the booth next him and do the color while he did the play-by-play. It's another one of those great memories that's right there on top of the list."

Scully, a dear friend of Reagan and his wife, Nancy, was contacted on Saturday in Phoenix, where the Dodgers are playing the Diamondbacks, and said that he always will remember the former president.

"Before he and Nancy moved to Bel Air, the president was a good neighbor and a good friend," Scully said. "My family and I will mourn his passing."

Reagan began his career in 1933, re-creating Cubs games for radio station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, and was known then as "Dutch" Reagan.

The re-creation was a byproduct of the early days of baseball broadcasting, when many games weren't generated live from the ballpark. Instead, details of the game would be sent from the park to studios via telegraph and the "broadcast" would be re-created replete with crowd noise.

"They had sound effects and the men's room was the echo chamber of the PA announcer," said Ted Patterson, who wrote last year's "The Golden Voices of Baseball." "It was a part of Americana that unfortunately is gone forever."

Reagan's greatest moment as a baseball broadcaster came in 1934, when the telegraph wire went dead during the ninth inning of a scoreless Cubs-Cardinals game. Reagan maintained his composure and created a fictional at-bat that mimicked the foul ball after foul ball appearance the Dodgers' Alex Cora had earlier this season. Few listeners were any the wiser when the ticker came alive again six minutes later.

In 1937, Reagan was attending Cubs Spring Training on Catalina Island off the California coast near Los Angeles and had a screen test for the Warner Brothers movie studio. It led to his first of several significant career changes.

"One day at Catalina, Charlie Grimm, the Cubs' manager, bawled me out for not even showing up at the practice field. How could I tell him that somewhere within myself was the knowledge I would no longer be a sports announcer?" Reagan later recalled.

Later that year Reagan became a screen actor, and by 1940, he appeared in his most famous sports role, as Notre Dame football star, George Gipp, in the film, "Knute Rockne: All American."

In that film, the dying Gipp tells Rockne: "Some day, when things are tough, maybe you can ask the boys to go in there and win just one for the Gipper." Rockne, played by Pat O'Brien, later uses the line to exhort his team to victory.

But there were no such memorable phrases 12 years later, when Reagan appeared alongside Doris Day as the enigmatic Alexander, who overcame bouts with myopia and alcoholism to pitch the Cardinals over the Yankees in the 1926 World Series.

It was to be Reagan's last real brush with baseball until after he served two terms as governor of California and became U.S. president.

In 1981, just after taking office, the Reagans hosted a lunch for 32 Hall of Famers at the White House. He attended the first game of the 1983 World Series, ultimately won by the Orioles over the Phillies, and subsequently threw out the first pitch at old Memorial Stadium for a pair of Opening Days in Baltimore.

But on Sept. 30, 1988, Reagan fulfilled his original career dream and finally made it to Wrigley Field where he finally broadcast 1 1/2 innings early in the Cubs' 10-9 loss to the Pirates.

Reagan was late arriving to the ballpark that day, Stone recalled, and the game was inexplicably delayed. The Secret Service had manned the roof tops around the old ballpark, which is tucked into a neighborhood just off the lakefront on Chicago's north side.

"I was oblivious to what was going on and I couldn't understand why the game was being delayed," Stone said. "I was sitting at the microphone trying to fill time and I felt a tail between my legs and reached down and touched a wet nose. It was one of those bomb-sniffing dogs and suddenly I realized that the president must be coming."

Reagan threw out the first pitch and then made his way up to the press box, a long haul up stairs and ramps from field level. He was wearing a bulletproof vest under a Cubs jacket and arrived huffing and puffing, Stone recalled.

"It was a humid day and I knew he was wearing that thick vest because I patted him on the shoulder and felt it through the jacket," Stone said. "I knew that if I had just made the same trek I'd have had to catch my breath, too."

The late Harry Caray, then the Cubs' play-by-play man, stepped aside and allowed the president to take that role.

"You could tell he was an old radio guy. He never once looked at the television monitor," Caray said at the time.

Reagan, who was to be replaced in office that coming January by George Herbert Walker Bush, then his vice president, said he was happy to have the chance to do a few innings.

"You know in a few months I'm going to be out of work and I thought I might as well audition," Reagan said that day.

On the day of Reagan's passing, Stone said the memory of that day is still indelible.

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

A Des Moines tv station just carried a spot on Reagans time while here is Des Moines. His radio career started in the quad cities in 1932 for one year and then he spent 33-37 doing sports for WHO in Des Moines. At one point he was voted the nations top sports broadcaster. He did Cub games via teletype and added (adlibed) considerable to keep things lively. He did an evening sports summary of national and state sports, at which time it occurred to me he would have covered my Dad some as he was a prominent ball player for the Univ of Iowa at that time. He was quick to note he was engaged to a girl then in Illinois and was never unfaithful to her until she returned his ring via mail.

While here in Des Moines he was a member of the Cavalry and served at FT Des Moines (as did Patton and numerous others). He was injured when his horse bolted while training indoors and plunged through a couple jumps--without jumping and then slammed a wall.

Reagans big show break came in 37 when he was sent on radio assignment to Hollywood and the next time he was heard from he was in the movies--playing a radio broadcaster.

A good man that knew exactly how to rally a nation in defense of freedom. Might Dutch know eternal peace--he leaves a world the better for his leadership.

Godspeed Gipper.

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