You can now read Richard Nixon's personal letters to Darryl Strawberry and other big leaguers
It's early 1986. Whitney Houston is on the radio, Top Gun is in theaters, and Darryl Strawberry is in a hitting slump. A fan sits down to write Straw a letter of encouragement. That fan is former President Richard Nixon.
Twenty-eight years later, the letter is part of Play Ball! Presidents and Baseball, a new exhibit at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, in Yorba Linda, Calif. If it wasn't clear from the Strawberry anecdote, Nixon took a serious interest in the national pastime:
In 1969, after expressing some career choice remorse, Nixon was made an honorary member of the BBWAA. But he wasn't the only president who loved baseball -- since Abraham Lincoln skipped out of meetings to play ball on the White House lawn, commanders-in-chief have been a part of the national pastime. The exhibit also includes:
On April 15, Tommy Lasorda spent some time among the artifacts, one of which is baseball-themed telephone he gifted to President George H. W. Bush. Asked what he thought about the exhibit, Lasorda said, "It's beautiful here."