SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — With his official Little League windbreaker half-zipped, President Bush took a quick bow before hurling a pitch that floated across the strike zone and into the glove of Will Blankenship, age 12.
Then Bush stepped off the mound and turned spectator at the Little League World Series, rooting for a Florida team to win the championship trophy over a Japanese squad. It was not to be.
The president already had his trophy. He was inducted Sunday into the league's Hall of Excellence as the first kiddie player (Midland, Texas Central Little League Cubs, 1955) to go on to occupy the White House.
Sunday's induction added Bush to an eclectic mix of Little Leaguers who've done great things: actors Kevin Costner and Tom Selleck, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, rock star Bruce Springsteen, columnists Dave Barry and George Will, astronaut Story Musgrave, former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy and Dan Quayle, vice president under Bush's father.
Not to mention those who stuck with baseball and found fame, such as Cal Ripken Jr., Dale Murphy, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan and Mike Schmidt.
"When I was playing on those dusty Little League fields in west Texas, I never dreamt I'd be president of the United States," Bush said. Back then, his dream was getting to the Little League World Series.
"I can remember my mother sitting behind the backstop in Midland, Texas, telling me what to do," he recalled. "She's still telling me what to do."
His advice to today's Little Leaguers? "Listen to your mother."
The official Little League program put the focus on Bush's father, the former president, noting a letter in which the elder Bush told his father-in-law that 9-year-old "Georgie" could be a bit aggravating but had shown much pluck on the ballfield.
"At times I am so proud of him I could die," the elder Bush wrote. "He is out for Little League, so eager. He tries so very hard. He has good, fast hands and even seems to be able to hit a little."
Bush the son became a middle reliever on Yale's freshman baseball team — an athletic career he said earlier this year was mediocre, adding, "I peaked in Little League."
Bush has sought to re-ignite interest in baseball, converting a corner of the White House South Lawn into a T-ball field where children can play on Sundays, develop a lifelong love for the game and embrace the principles that drive it.