However vague and selective memory may be, baseball coverage began with print, added radio and television, and thus ferried the game to faraway homes, stores, and cars. As early as 1859, writers – “scribes,” in the age's argot – described amateur teams playing at the White Lott, or Ellipse, between the White House and Washington Monument. Deem them Coronado, or Cortez. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln became President, playing hooky to watch ball on the Ellipse. By the 1880s, amateur pitcher William Howard Taft pined for the major leagues, settling for Lincoln's post. In 1909, Taft saw his first game as President. “It was interrupted by cheering,” read The Washington Post , “which spread from the grandstand to the bleachers as the crowd recognized him.” At 300 pounds, he was hard to miss.

Lincoln and later Taft governed as America turned from wilderness to settlement, agrarian to manufacturing, Eastern Seaboard to Westward-Ho. In 1876, nearly eight in ten lived on farms or in towns that relied on agriculture. By 1900, cities had surged in the industrial postwar boom. In one part of lower Manhattan, nearly 1,000 persons an acre filled tenements. To succeed, they needed to learn English. The best way was to read.