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JFK throwing out first pitch at new D.C. Stadium (Washington DC) 1962.

He continued a long-standing tradition that began in 1910 when President William H. Taft threw out Major League Baseball’s first opening-day pitch in Washington D.C.’s old Griffith Stadium.

In 1969, the D.C. Stadium was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, after President John F. Kennedy’s brother and attorney general, who was assassinated in 1968.

Photo will be in REA's Spring Auction

Funny Story from that game:

On April 9, 1962, 44,383 fans packed into D.C. Stadium to see the Senators defeat the Tigers, 4-1, on Opening Day. Jimmy Piersall led off and went 1 for 4 with a triple, and made a running catch in center field. Years later, Senators rookie pitcher Jim Hannan, who hitched a ride with Piersall on Opening Day, recalled an amusing story about their trip to the ballpark.

“He showed up in what looked like a ’37 Chevy,” Hannan told Fred Frommer, the author of “You Gotta Have Heart,” a history of Washington baseball. “It broke down right in front of the White House. So we had to take a cab to the stadium.”

Hannan told Frommer that the White House later called Piersall, and a secretary told him to hold for the president.

“And [John F.] Kennedy gets on and says, ‘What are you doing leaving that piece of junk in front of my house?'” Hannan said.

Piersall and Kennedy, who threw the ceremonial first pitch at D.C. Stadium on Opening Day in 1962, knew each other personally from Piersall’s spent eight seasons with the Red Sox during the 1950s and Kennedy’s tenure as the junior Senator from Massachusetts.