[ad_1]
The deferral comes after Trump announced Thursday that he had agreed to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on August 15.
Speaking from the White House briefing room podium, Trump said the team’s president Randy Levine “asked me to throw out the first pitch” at Yankee Stadium. Trump said he accepted the offer and asked Levine, “How’s the crowd going to be?”
“You don’t have a crowd,” the President said. “There’s no such thing.”
Trump’s plan, however, was met with immediate backlash from New York City officials.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz said in a forceful statement Friday that, “We all deserve better than a careless major league baseball organization that consistently ignores the surrounding community while pandering to an unapologetic white supremacist like Donald Trump.”
That message was echoed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted Saturday, “After CONDEMNING racism, the next step isn’t inviting it to your pitcher’s mound.”
The tradition of US presidents throwing out the first pitch at Major League Baseball games stretches back to 1910.
Taft’s Opening Day toss touched off an early season tradition that has stretched for more than a century. While presidents in the 1920s and 1930s often threw out the first pitch before World Series games, a president taking to the rubber during the Fall Classic has been much rarer in recent memory.
There was some talk of Trump throwing the first pitch at last year’s World Series game, but he balked at the idea, saying that he would have to wear “a lot of heavy armor” to make such an appearance.
“I’ll look too heavy. I don’t like that,” he said at the time.
Instead, celebrity chef José Andrés, a prominent Trump critic, threw out the first pitch before Trump arrived to his seat.
CNN’s Kristina Sgueglia and Kyle Feldscher contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link