"I hope that I am not a hoodoo.(hex on the team)"

"I like it (baseball) for two reasons. First, because I enjoy it myself and second, because if by the presence of the temporary first magistrate such a healthy amusement can be encouraged, I want to encourage it."

"Saturday's game was a fine one, but several times when a hit meant a run, the batter was ordered to bunt. I believe they should hit it out. I love the game when there is plenty of slugging.

"That's the last time I'll ever pitch. If that team hit me as well as they did, I must by through. I'll never pitch again."

"The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics. It furnishes amusement to the thousands and thousands."

"To Walter Johnson with the hope that he will be as formidable as in yesterday's game." - Inscription on opening day first pitch

"I'll never forget the first time President Taft appeared at our ball park. In the season of 1909 and our players got so excited that we booted the game away to the Red Sox." - Walter Johnson

"President Taft believes in Base Ball. He tells his friends that it is a pastime worth every man's while and advises them to banish the blues by going to a ball game and waking up with the enthusiasts of the bleachers who permit no man to be grouchy among them" - Spalding Official Base Ball Guide (1911)

"The game was interrupted by the cheering, which spread in a great wave from the grandstand to the bleachers as the crowd recognized the president." - Washington Post

Quotations From & About William H. Taft