February 23, 2022 – Theme Week Day 3

We’re halfway through our theme week on Presidential Firsts! Today we’re talking about the first president to throw the first pitch on baseball’s Opening Day – William Howard Taft! He threw out the ceremonial first pitch in 1910 on opening day for the Washington Senators. Every president since, with the exception of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, has thrown at least one first pitch during or after their presidency, either for Opening Day, the All-Star Game or during the World Series.
Taft was our 27th president and the 10th chief justice of the United States – the only person to hold both positions. He was elected president in 1908, after starting his career as a judge, solicitor general, and Secretary of War.
What most people remember about Taft is that he was our heaviest president. He was 5’11 and his weight topped out around 335-340 pounds. He did drop to 244 by 1929. There’s also a popular rumor that he once got stuck in the White House bathtub. But that’s not true. There’s absolutely no documentary evidence about the story, and it didn’t come out until 2 decades after Taft left office. There’s also the fact that a Manhattan company custom built the largest solid porcelain tub ever made for an individual, which was installed in the White House for President Taft. The tub was over 7 feet long and was 41 inches wide – difficult to get stuck in, for sure!
After losing his reelection bid, Taft went back to Yale as a professor. He was appointed Chief Justice in 1921 by then-president Warren Harding. At the time, the court didn’t have its own building. They met in the Capitol in offices that were cluttered and overcrowded. So in 1925, Taft began a mission to get the Court it’s own building, which Congress approved 2 years later. Unfortunately, Taft died before the Court moved into the new building in 1935. Taft resigned as chief justice in February of 1930 and died a month later. He was laid to rest at Arlington Nation Cemetary, the first president, and first Supreme Court justice to be buried there.
Learn more here.