Posted on 10/30/2001 3:30:15 PM PST by Dog Gone
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Weeks after advocating that Americans defy terrorism by going to ballgames, President Bush heeded his own advice, arriving in New York on Tuesday to watch the World Series at Yankee Stadium.
Hardly tough duty for the nation's No. 1 baseball fan, but also an important gesture, according to the White House.
``This is part of the balance our society is coming to understand, that as threats are received, as security is beefed up, it similarly is important for (Americans) to go about their normal life,'' spokesman Ari Fleischer said in announcing Bush also would throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
``No one has ever been able to make the American people cower and not live the American life,'' Fleischer said.
As Bush left the White House, he told reporters he hoped the series would go the full seven games, and by the time he boarded the presidential aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base, he was limbering up his right arm.
Since the Sept. 11 suicide plane attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Bush has urged Americans to go about business as usual, to take vacations, to fly again and to go to ballparks, all the while remaining on alert.
But the only norms in New York, where about 4,500 people died at the World Trade Center, are that this is October and the Yankees are in major league baseball's World Series again.
The federal government on Monday issued a second warning that there may be new terror attacks on the United States or its interests over the next week. In response, Vice President Dick Cheney was taken to an undisclosed secure location.
The alert came amid a spate of anthrax incidents that killed three people and left Americans fearing more assaults could include biological warfare.
The World Trade Center is still smoldering, the dead are still being mourned and New Yorkers are still coming to grips with the gaping hole in their skyline left after the 110-story twin towers were demolished by two hijacked aircraft.
The legendary Yankees, World Series winners four out of the past five years, are in a 0-2 hole to the Arizona Diamondbacks, an upstart expansion team. They were two games down to the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-seven World Series five years ago and stormed back to win four in a row.
BASEBALL TRIPLE FOR BUSH
Security for Bush's visit to the third game -- the first to be played in New York -- will be anything but normal.
Law enforcement sources said almost 2,000 police officers on foot, horseback and motorcycles would be on duty in and around the Bronx ballpark, snipers would be stationed on nearby rooftops and bomb-sniffing dogs would be used.
Fans will be checked as they enter, and backpacks confiscated. Neither blimps nor news helicopters will be allowed to fly over during the game.
Bush, a former part-owner of the Texas Rangers who never saw his ball club go to a World Series, has not been a fan of the Yankees in the past. But if he was hoping for a Diamondbacks' victory, it remained a diplomatic secret.
Fleischer, a die-hard Yankee supporter who donned a team cap to announce Bush would go to the game, dodged the delicate issue, telling reporters, ``The president at tonight's game will be proudly rooting for the Texas Rangers.''
Earlier this year, Bush attended Little League Baseball's World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
A lifelong fan, Bush brought baseball -- or at least a child's version of it -- to the White House South Lawn last spring, hosting T-Ball games between teams of local children too young for Little League.
In March, he held a Baseball Hall of Fame lunch at the White House for about 50 of the game's greatest players. A few months later, Bush, who said he once dreamed of being like celebrated Giants' center fielder Willie Mays but never president, became the first chief executive to be inducted into the Little League Hall of Excellence.
I trust it will be thrown from the stands and not the mound.
Actually he showed his cojones once or twice... To an intern for polishing...
I doubt slick could throw a ball all the way from the counter to the fryolater at Mickey D's.
LMFAO.....
Here's a link to a picture. The picture would slow the thread down too much, so:
Seriously, though, I hope Bush takes advantage of his visit to help out some Republican candidates in the region. Mayor Schundler is the best politician I've seen from the region. Unfortunatley he is 10 points down. A Bush endorsement in NJ could make the difference.
While in NY, Bush could also met with Bloomberg. Bloomberg may be a DemocRat is sheeps clothing, but he is better than Mark Green. Green is a Jewish David Dinkins without the charm or mustache. If Green gets elected, NY will burn. I already have a betting pool on what neighborhood will go up first. (If we're screwed anyway, I might as well make a buck.)
As a New Yorker, I suppose I could buy a shotgun and hunker down at home. Unfortunately, we are about to lose that right completely, thanks to a Charter provision effectively banning guns within 4 blocks from any school.
Please excuse me while I return to the relatively sane world known as the Students Revolutionary Republic of Morningside Hts, otherwise called Columbia.
Ron
Matt Williams talking about going to Ground Zero today.
Heehee...
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