Trump's Baseball Career and Other Lies

I have avoided covering political issues in Football Archaeology, partly because many use sports and sports history as a diversion. However, we are fighting for our country's future, so I will use my little platform today to highlight how an element of Trump's past provides the 10,000th reason why he deserves no place in America's future.

I spend a lot of time researching old-time football. The other day, I turned my attention to baseball to check Trump's claim that he once starred on the diamond for his high school, the New York Military Academy. A Slate article covered his claim in 2020, but I wanted to do my own research.

The story revolves around Trump's 2013 claim that he was once considered the best baseball player in New York.

The tweet remained live when this article was published.

To check Trump's claims of athletic prowess at the New York Military Academy (NYMA), I searched an online newspaper archive for articles published from 1960 through 1964 covering his high school baseball games. The search returned stories from numerous Tri-State newspapers with box scores for thirteen games: three as a sophomore, two as a junior, and eight as a senior.

If Trump were one of the top baseball players in New York State, the game reports would have mentioned his performance, and a profile piece or two might have covered his many skills. However, Trump made so little impression on reporters that he went unmentioned in the thirteen articles, aside from appearing in the box scores.

What do the box scores tell us about Donald Trump, the top baseball player in New York State? In three games during his sophomore season, Trump went 0 for 10, batting .000. As a junior, he batted 2 for 9 for a .222 average. Still, let’s focus on his senior year when more articles are available to see if he dramatically improved and reached top-player status.

The NYMA team went 5-2-1 in the eight games I found during Trump's senior season. Although they had a winning record, the team was not a powerhouse, and neither was its competition, with one opponent committing ten errors against NYMA.

The box scores show that Donald Trump experienced a severe batting slump during his senior year. He had 21 or 22 at-bats; two newspapers covering the same game show he either went 0 for 3 or 0 for 4. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he only went 0 for 3 that day.

Call me crazy, but I expect the best player in New York State to bat at least .400 or have tremendous power or both, and that standard would apply against top competition, not the lesser teams NYMA played.

The table below shows the date, opponent, final score, and Trump's hits, runs, and at-bats for eight games during his senior year. Following the table is a gallery of images showing the newspaper articles for those games.

How many hits did Trump have in 21 at-bats his senior year?

Trump got one hit. One.

Donald Trump, the supposed top player in the state, batted 1 for 21 in the seven games with box scores, achieving a stellar .047 average. Trump was the farthest thing possible from the top player in the state.

If Trump had been a role player who helped his team by filling a place on the roster and, perhaps, being an excellent defensive first baseman, there would have been no issue. That story would show he sacrificed his time and minimal talent for his team. Instead, he was a terrible player whose tiny ego led him to lie about his high school baseball career, just as he has lied about nearly everything in his life. Trump wasn't a star. Trump lied then, and Trump lies now.

His baseball lies are small potatoes relative to his record as an insurrectionist, rapist, and 34-time felon, but they are symbolic of who he is.

For our nation’s sake…

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

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