Biden tells Dodgers a tale of former baseball glory, gets debunked by old newspaper articles
President Biden was called out for telling the LA Dodgers a made-up story of him hitting a ball and it bouncing “off the wall” in the outfield during the second Congressional baseball game back in 1973.
“I played in the second congressional baseball game at the old stadium, in the old Washington stadium. I hit one off the right-center field wall, bounced off the wall. I think it’s 368, or I don’t know what it is exactly now, but off the wall,” Biden said while congratulating the LA Dodgers on their World Series Championship at the White House on Friday.
“To make a long story short, my kids remember that,” the president said. “And guess what? Only thing I remember, too.”
Unfortunately for Biden, fact-checkers immediately started investigating his claim of former baseball glory and found that almost none of the story was true.
“Biden’s second Congressional baseball game would have been in 1974 Did he really hit a 368 foot shot? No, he went 0-2,” tweeted GOP Deputy Communications Director Zach Parkinson. Parkinson sourced newspaper articles from the time that reported Biden having gone 0 for 2 with a “ground out” and a “strikeout.”
The claim that the baseball game was played at “the old Washington stadium” is also proven wrong. Records from the official House website show that the baseball games were played at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore at the time. Parkinson notes that the games weren’t played at the Washington Stadium (RFK) again until 2005.
Biden has a history of making up past athletic accomplishments. At a campaign stop in 2012, he told voters in Athens, Ohio, that he had played for the University of Delaware’s Football team. “I came here in October 1963,” he said. “We beat you Bobcats 29-12.” However, it is mentioned in Biden’s own memoir that he quit the team before the season even started. Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign was marred with accusations of lying about academic success as well as accusations of plagiarism throughout his early political career.