Clinton’s ‘Bloop’ Opens Oriole Baseball Season

President Clinton, trading the dark suit and tie of a chief executive for a Baltimore Orioles jacket, Monday inaugurated the 1993 baseball season at Camden Yards stadium with an arching, outside pitch.

The effort was promptly declared a “bloop” by sports announcer Brooks Robinson, a former Orioles star, who added: “He got it there--that was all right.”

But Clinton clearly impressed Robinson on several other counts--his knowledge of the Orioles’ record, as well as that of their opening-day opponents, the Texas Rangers, and his ability to call the play-by-play action.

Clinton, who returned about 2 a.m. Monday from a meeting in Vancouver, Canada, with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, took the field for the ceremonial pitch wearing an Orioles cap and the warm-up jacket over a pair of fashionably baggy green trousers. Later, joining WMAR-TV announcers Jon Miller and Robinson in the broadcast booth, he told them: “The main thing I didn’t want to do was throw it in the dirt.”

Clinton offered a modest appraisal of his own baseball skills, telling them that in junior and senior high school “I had to play outfield because I was so slow.” As a hitter, he confessed, he was “mediocre,” though “enthusiastic.”

The President gamely took over the play-by-play announcing for a few minutes in the first inning. He observed after a pitch to Texas Rangers slugger Jose Canseco: “Canseco checks his swing and hits a foul.” After noting that the Rangers had a fair share of good hitters in their line-up, he offered: “If their pitching comes up this year, they’ll be good.”

Clinton and the announcers joked about how Clinton’s schedule had cut down on his sleep and how Clinton and Robinson, both Arkansans, can go to sleep anywhere. Clinton speculated that Arkansans may have that talent because “most of us don’t have to go very far back to find a family without a bed.”

He reported that he’s now jogging about 20 miles a week and is happy with that regimen.

Outside the ball park, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson led a demonstration, calling for more minority representation in baseball clubs’ executive ranks. Asked about the demonstration, Clinton declared the issue as “legitimate,” saying that he was encouraged by the recent appointment of former slugger Don Baylor to manage the Colorado Rockies.

But the President declined to take sides in the contest on the field and refrained from predicting the outcome. “That’s what we’re going to the game to find out,” he said. (The Rangers defeated the Orioles, 7-4).

Clinton took a commuter railroad trip from Washington to Baltimore for the game, working the crowd in two cars along the way. Accompanying him were U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, Deputy National Security Adviser Samuel (Sandy) Berger, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena and aide Bruce Lindsey.