Seeing Home: The Ed Lucas Story by Ed Lucas & Christopher Lucas

Author:Ed Lucas & Christopher Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jeter Publishing

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Cold Cuts and Hot Feet: My Life in the Clubhouse

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a series of social reform programs he dubbed The Great Society. One of these involved providing assistance and funds to help disabled people purchase a home. As soon as I realized that I wanted to be a homeowner, I submitted my application. As with many government programs, there are lots and lots of hoops and red tape that you have to get through before actually reaching the goal. I was very close to the end of the process in 1971 when one last roadblock appeared. This one would be almost impossible to surmount without assistance. Luckily, I’d made a few influential friends at the ballpark.

Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were in office just as my baseball career began. They very rarely got to games, so I never met them. Over the years, however, I did have the opportunity to chat with several of the men who occupied the White House.

President George H. W. Bush was the captain of the Yale baseball team in the 1940s. He was a big baseball fan, and often went to ballgames. I was in the National League clubhouse at the All Star Game in Toronto in 1991 when the Secret Service came in, unannounced, to clear the room of everyone but the players and coaches. I was headed out the door with the crowd when National League president Bill White, Mr. Rizzuto’s longtime on-air partner with the Yankees, grabbed me and said, “Not you, Ed.” A moment later, President Bush walked in with former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau. White introduced me to both men. Mr. Bush shook my hand and called me an inspiration to all baseball fans. One of the players stuck a ball in my other hand and urged me to get Bush to autograph it. I reluctantly asked him, and he complied. It was only later, in the press box, that my guide told me the president had signed the ball in green ink, for some odd reason.

His son, George W. Bush, was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers before he won the presidency in 2000. The younger Bush actually traveled to Yankee Stadium with the Rangers on several occasions. I was in the hallway outside Mr. Steinbrenner’s office one night in the early 1990s when “W” stopped to ask me what I thought of the Rangers’ roster that season. We immediately hit it off. When he returned to Yankee Stadium as president to throw out the first pitch at the 2001 World Series, shortly after the September 11 attacks, I couldn’t get near him to talk, but he waved and nodded in my direction as we passed in the tunnels below the Stadium.

President Clinton moved to New York after his term of office in Washington was done. He spent a lot of time at both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, so I ran into him quite often. Clinton wasn’t a historian of the sport, like the Bushes, but he could hold his own.

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