Coming Face to Face With the Shadow of an American Legend

Every Sunday morning, I play softball with a bunch of guys at Cheviot Hills Park on the Westside. As teams go, we stink, but our wives and kids always turn out for the games.

A couple of Sundays ago, as we warmed up, four strangers appeared on the dugout bleachers: an elderly man and woman and two thirtysomething fellows in jeans and baseball caps.

A family enjoying the park, I assumed.

But the older man in the tan cardigan and khakis caught my attention as I jogged in from left field around the fifth inning. I knew those ruddy cheeks. Those broad shoulders. That beak nose.

Could it be? Ronald Reagan watching my softball game?

I glanced across the bleachers and confirmed my suspicion: The two thirtysomethings flanking the old man were wearing earpieces with wires leading into their pockets.

Secret Service.

Bingo.

I whispered the news to my wife. She told a friend. Around the diamond, word spread like a salacious campaign rumor.

*

Our game stopped mid-pitch as players deserted their positions to greet Reagan. They approached him carefully, not sure what to expect, most aware that Alzheimer’s disease had robbed Reagan of his personality. We were uncertain what was left. A surprising number of people have experienced such encounters with the president: Since publicly announcing that he had Alzheimer’s in 1994, Reagan has continued to visit his Century City office and stroll along the beach and other public places.

I remembered that a friend had seen Reagan at the Century City shopping mall last year and felt so awkward about how Alzheimer’s seemed to have ravaged Reagan that he stopped himself from saying hello. One torture of Alzheimer’s is that it turns human beings into ghosts, and now we stood face to face with the most famous ghost we could imagine.

On this morning, at 87, he looked gaunt. His pants were baggy. His baseball cap and large glasses dwarfed his thin face. His handlers grew visibly nervous as our small crowd gradually moved from the field and surrounded him. The Secret Service agents tried to escort him away, but not before two dozen scruffy ballplayers and their bouncy kids encircled him, his bodyguards and the elderly woman (who turned out not to be Nancy but, I guessed, a nurse).

“Hello, Mr. President,” Jordan, our second baseman, offered.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. President,” Fred, our center fielder, called out.

The captivating glint was still there. So was the optimistic nod of the head. He shook our hands. But he mumbled more than talked, and he shuffled more than walked as he waited for the Secret Service agents to show the way.

I stood back and tried to make sense of what I was seeing. I had always thought of Reagan as an abstract political force for greed. But all of that faded at the ball field. Here was the man himself, one of the century’s most dominant figures, standing before me, subject to the same laws of nature as me: a man humbled by time. Here was the man who faced down the Evil Empire spending a morning in the park, watching my synagogue softball team, the Hitmen of B’nai David-Judea.

Finally, it was my turn to step forward to greet him. I took a good look as we shook hands. His hands were wrinkled, maybe a little shaky. He seemed lost, unsteady. It made me angry: How could I blame someone as harmless as this for an administration I detested?

*

The president and his helpers continued to make their way through the crowd standing near the bleachers. When they arrived at the backstop, our third-baseman, Jacob, handed Reagan a softball. Reagan started for the field, as if he would throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the World Series. But one of the Secret Service agents gently stopped him.

“Mr. President,” he said, “we’re going to leave now.”

And so Reagan exited toward a waiting black sedan, one handler on one arm, another a step behind scanning the turf. We never found out why his party had chosen our ballgame or that park.

We resumed our game and I trotted out to left field. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the president as he walked down a grassy hill next to the outfield. A pair of joggers passed without noticing him. And then the Secret Service agents packed him gingerly into the black sedan and headed off into the gleaming day.