Playing Softball with Jimmy Carter

Willie Mays, arguably the most electric, graceful—and certainly one of the most joyful and competitive—players ever to wear spikes, died May 18 at age 93.

  Though I grew up in New York, I never saw him play in person for the New York Giants at the old Polo Grounds. But etched in my memory are black-and-white replays of “the Catch” during game one of the 1954 Giants-Indians World Series when, with the score tied 2-2 in the eighth and runners on base, Mays robbed Vic Wertz of an extra-base hit with an incredible basket catch of a long fly ball near the Polo Grounds’ scoreboard.

“The Catch” by the late great Willie Mays, one of the most dramatic plays in baseball history. (Wikipedia)

The Giants went on to win the game 5–2 in extra innings and eventually the World Series. “The Catch” was rightfully called one of the greatest plays in baseball history.

This was during the glory years for N.Y. baseball fans, when the city boasted not one but three major league teams: the New York Yankees in the American League and the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants in the National League.

And all three teams were regular pennant contenders, if not champions. Consider: during much of this time, the centerfielders on each of these teams were larger-than life sluggers: Mickey Mantle on the Yanks, Duke Snider on the Dodgers and Mays on the Giants.

In schoolyards and on sandlots, you’d always hear arguments over who was the best.

God, what a time to be a baseball-loving kid. 

A 1964 softball game between two of CCNY’s college newspapers, The Campus and Observation Post. That’s me at the plate. (photo by Neil Offen)

Though no one ever would confuse me for a jock, I loved the game, played it, and have carried that affection with me all my life. My father played American Legion baseball in Flushing, Queens, and passed on his love for the game to his only son—along with an incongruous attraction to the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. After all, he was a Yankee fan and during my Bronx childhood we lived walking distance of Yankee Stadium.

That’s because during World War II. Tech Sergeant Al Van Riper was in the same army division as the great Dodger right fielder Carl Furillo and so came home from the war rooting for the Brooklyn Bums, at least in the National League. (Which also explains why when we went to games, we spent our time either at the Stadium or the Dodgers’ Ebbetts Field, not the Polo Grounds, where Willie Mays played.)

Suffice to say I did not become a major leaguer. But years later I did play softball with the President of the United States—once even forcing him into a game he had not intended to play.

And, truth to tell, years earlier my photo was in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

With the obvious exception of former All-American football player Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter may have been our most athletic president. He jogged like it was his job and, when visiting his hometown of Plains, Ga., during the spring and summer, often would pitch in softball games between the White House press corps and local opponents.

It got so that guys like me would pack our gloves along with our typewriter and tape recorder whenever we’d head to Plains. It was fun, sure, but Carter did not like to lose.

This often was not a problem, since we scribes were, how shall I put this, not in the best shape. Our star, for example, often was CBS’ Ed Bradley, who had played college sports, but whose knees were shot. I remember him standing at home plate in shorts, both his knees heavily wrapped in Ace bandages. (This was our star, remember.)

And it didn’t help that our team of local opponents often included members of Carter’s Secret Service detail, who worked out with annoying regularity.

So seriously did Carter take physical activity that I pitched my paper, the New York Daily News, on a piece for the Sunday News Magazine (weekend readership of five million) on “Our Athletic President.” I figured I could lard it with color from the next time we played ball in Plains.

So, returning to Plains a few weeks later I was not happy when White House press secretary Jody Powell told me that “The Boss” didn’t feel like playing softball that weekend.

“Like hell,” I told Jody, mentioning that I was doing a piece for the then-largest newspaper in the country on Jimmy the Jock. (I also may have mentioned our five million weekend readers.)

Sure enough, that weekend we played softball—with Jimmy on the mound.

That, in itself, would have been a coup—but I wanted more: a cover photo for the magazine. And I got one, but not without some drama.

At the time I was dating the Atlanta Constitution’s White House correspondent and, since the presidential softball game was a good local feature, Carole had gotten a Constitution photographer to join us in Plains to shoot the game. 

“Have you got any color with you?” I asked the photographer, knowing that back then in 1979 any newspaper photog shooting spot news always shot in black and white since the technology simply didn’t exist for newspapers to run color pictures in the next day’s edition.

Thankfully, he did have color film. I told him all I needed were a couple of photos of Carter on the mound and that the pic likely would be the color cover of our Sunday magazine.

Nervously, the photographer unloaded his camera of BxW film, quickly loaded a roll of color and shot a few frames of Carter pitching. Then, just as quickly, he unloaded the color, handed me the film cannister, and re-loaded with BxW.

Jimmy Carter playing softball in Plains, Ga., in 1979.

(photo deliberately anonymous)

He told me in no uncertain terms that I was NOT to give him a photo credit when I shipped the film to New York for processing—and for good reason.  In the awful event that someone had assassinated Carter while the photographer was loaded with color, he would not have had any photos to offer his paper that could run the next day, a certain firing offense.

Happily, all went well, the pic made a great cover and the anonymous photographer remains anonymous.

So, how did a picture of me wind up in the Hall of Fame? It certainly was not because of my fastball.

It was Opening Day in Washington, DC, April 7, 1969, and Richard Nixon, inaugurated just three months earlier, was eager to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in a game between the Washington Senators and the Yankees. Back then, presidents did not have to walk to the mound and try not to embarrass themselves. Instead, they threw a few balls from the presidential box at ground level to a nearby catcher on the field.

As you might guess this was not big news. But those of us Washington newsies who loved baseball (and there are quite a few of us, it turns out) made an effort to cover these events, just for the fun of it.

I even got assigned to the White House press pool and got to be in the stands behind Nixon as he threw out a really lame first pitch.

A couple of years later I was married to my first wife Chris. While vacationing in upstate New York we decided to make a side trip to Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame.

At the time there was a “Hall of Presidents” show featuring huge blowup photos of presidents throwing out the first pitch.

Sure enough, there was Nixon—and damned if I were not visible behind him just a few rows back.

Still, that was not the most memorable thing about the pic. What caught our eye was the huge and misspelled presidential seal in front of Nixon, touting him as the “Presidnt of the United States.”

Maybe somebody knew something even then.

 ***

Frank Van Riper grew up in the Bronx and was a reporter and editor in the New York Daily News Washington Bureau for 20 years. Now a commercial and documentary photographer, his current book is Recovered Memory: New York & Paris 1960-1980. His next book, done in collaboration with Judith Goodman, his wife and partner, is The Green Heart of Italy: Umbria and its Ancient Neighbors, to be published in Fall 2025 by Daylight Books.