US President Donald Trump has announced he will not after all throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the New York Yankees next month. He blamed his busy schedule in spite of having just spent another weekend at one of his own golf courses. Trump tweeted on Sunday, just days after announcing he would step up to the plate, he said, “Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season”! President Trump earlier said that he would throw out the opening pitch for one of the giants of the MLB.
Trump’s announcement that came hours before Anthony Fauci was due to throw the first pitch for his own team, the Washington Nationals. He has publicly clashed with his infection diseases expert and some close to the White House have been actively briefing against the scientist. His reasoning for now taking a rain check his busy schedule and it raised questions on social media. The golfnewsnet.com reported the president has been on the grounds of his own golf courses or played elsewhere no fewer than 280 times since 20th January 2017. But the website TrumpGolfCount estimates the total at 266. Moreover, Trump has said he will throw out a pitch in the future it may have occurred to him that it may be harder than it appears.
Point to be noted that not only Dr. Fauci’s own pitch somewhat wayward but widely shared pictures of the president trying to catch a ball thrown to him by former Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera on the White House lawn on Thursday showed him in an unflattering light. Another factor might be the fact that since the restart of the season amid the coronavirus epidemic, teams have routinely been taking a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter campaign for racial justice. President Trump tweeted last week and said, “Looking forward to Live Sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me”!