A first title for the Rangers and a sensation for the former first fan

There is no ring, but this week was special for former First Fan George W. Bush. Nearly thirty years after he sold the Texas Rangers, the team that brought him into politics finally won its first World Series title.

Mr Bush kicked off the series last week with throwing out the first pitch and cheered on his old team from home in Dallas on Wednesday won match 5 in Phoenix. For the former Rangers Managing Partner, it was an exciting finale to a championship that eluded him when he signed the cheques.

“I think he loves it,” said Tom Bernstein, a longtime friend and colleague in Rangers ownership at the time. Mr. Bush, he said, has always been fascinated by baseball. “It just appeals to him. It sounds corny, but the rhythm of the whole. He is a student of the game. He is immersed in it. He always was. Why baseball? It’s a crazy game. But it resonates with him. It’s part of who he is.”

The former president, who typically stays out of the industry to make statements these days, made an exception, declaring he was “elated” about the victory. “I congratulate the owners, the managers and coaching staff, the front office and the entire organization,” he said. “And of course I congratulate the players of this great team on winning the first World Series in the history of our club. This was baseball at its best, and Laura and I are proud of this team.”

Baseball has long been the sport of presidents, ever since Andrew Johnson brought the first players of an organized team to the White House and William Howard Taft became the first commander in chief to throw out the first pitch on opening day. But perhaps no one had more direct ties to the American pastime than Mr. Bush and his father, President George H. W. Bush, a star first baseman at Andover and Yale.

Young George dreamed of becoming another Willie Mays while playing catch in the backyard of Midland, Texas, with his father, who coached his Little League team. But while he followed his father to Andover and Yale, he couldn’t match Poppy’s glory on the diamond. Instead, he was a cheerleader and formed a stickball league, where he served as commissioner, called “Tweeds Bush,” a play on Boss Tweed, the old political boss.

Baseball “acted as a unifying factor” between the two Bushes, according to Mark K. Updegrove, author of “The Last Republicans,” a book about the presidential couple. Although football dominated Texas sports culture, “it was baseball that captured 43’s imagination, just as it did for 41,” Mr. Updegrove added, using their nicknames by presidential order.

For years, George W. Bush had little success in business or politics, but the unspoken competition between the two Bushes came to a head in 1989 when the son recruited investors to buy the Rangers, finally moving him out of his father’s considerable shadow could come.

“It may have meant just a little more to 43 that when he finally made something of himself in the business world, after struggling in the oil industry where his father had succeeded, it was in Major League Baseball, given the family’s reverence for the sport.” said Mr. Updegrove.

It was a nice deal too. Mr. Bush invested only $606,000 as his share of the $86 million purchase, but as managing partner was the accessible public face of the team. Most nights he sat not in the owner’s box, but in Section 109, Row 1, Seat 8, behind the dugout, signing autographs. He printed baseball cards with his face on them and traveled around the state giving speeches at Rotary and Kiwanis Club luncheons.

Mr. Bush organized a referendum for a temporary tax increase to build a new stadium, even though it was he traded Sammy Sosa, much to his eternal regretIn seven of the next ten seasons, the Rangers went from losers to winners as attendance nearly doubled and revenue increased.

For a political scion with his own ambitions, the turnaround also laid the foundation for a campaign for governor in 1994. The success of the property issue “solved my biggest political problem in Texas,” he once noted. “My problem was, ‘What has the kid ever done?'” He soon moved his collection of autographed baseball cards to the governor’s office, and in 1998 he sold his stake in the Rangers for $14.9 million, a significant return .

Bush’s most famous baseball moment, however, came after the September 11 attacks, when he… threw the first pitch in Game 3 of the World Series in New York to demonstrate the country’s resolve. He was wearing a Kevlar vest and was nervous before going onto the field.

Derek Jeter, the Yankees shortstop, forced him to throw from the mound, “This is New York. If you throw from the bottom of the hill, they will boo you.” Bush’s attack down the middle was roundly applauded.

Mr. Bush was reunited with Mr. Jeter on Friday at the Rangers’ ballpark, Globe Life Field in Arlington, before throwing out the first pitch of the team’s opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks. “I’m excited,” Bush told him on camera before predicting the Rangers “would be victorious in six games.”

He recalled Mr. Jeter’s taunt 22 years later: “All I thought about on the mound was you!” – but said this time he would throw from the bottom of the mound. “A completely different environment,” said Bush, now 77.

“Well, this is Texas, so if you bounce it, they won’t boo you,” Mr. Jeter responded.

Mr. Bush agreed. The pressure was off. “It doesn’t matter now.”

While wearing a Rangers jacket, Mr. Bush did indeed throw a one-bouncer. But the crowd cheered and Mr. Bush walked away with a big grin on his face.

His daughter, Jenna Bush Hager, noted afterward that he was still recovering from back surgery, a detail his chief of staff, Freddy Ford, confirmed. “President Bush is not one to make excuses, but that’s true: he did have lower back fusion surgery early this year,” Mr. Ford said. “He continues to recover well and is even looking forward to mountain biking with wounded warriors on his ranch over Veterans Day weekend.”

It’s been an exciting few weeks. Mr. Bush maintains ties to the team in the form of Kenneth A. Hersh, president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, who is also a minority owner. Roland W. Betts, a longtime Rangers associate, said that he and Mr. Bush “emailed each other throughout the postseason” and that the former president was still “a devoted Rangers fan.”

It was all reminiscent of the evening when Mr. Bush first climbed the pitcher’s mound thirty years ago as a young owner. “How cool is this?” he asked that evening. Still pretty cool.