Elegy for an Eli

Yale man and baseball captain, Bush never forgot his alma mater

JEFF JACOBS: Yale man and baseball captain Bush never forgot his alma mater.

NEW HAVEN — Whenever visitors arrived at Ray Tomkins House, Tom Beckett would step outside his Yale office and bring them to a nearby wall. Around them would be a treasure trove of athletic plaques, trophies, cups, even a Heisman in honor of Larry Kelley and Clint Frank.

Yet it would be a photograph that Beckett would be so eager to share.

“Clearly, they’d recognize Babe Ruth,” said Beckett, who retired in June after a quarter century as athletic director. “But then I’d say, what about the Yale man in uniform receiving the manuscript from the Babe? I’d tell them who it is was and they’d be blown away.”

The Yale man is George H.W. Bush, captain of the 1948 baseball team. On the weekend of Bush’s passing, at age 94, there is something irresistibly American about that iconic photograph.

Here was one of the biggest, most robust, insatiable athletes in American history, living his final

days with cancer, handing the manuscript of his autobiography, “The Babe Ruth Story,” to a young man with “YALE” across his chest at Yale Field. George Bush was already a war hero, a combat pilot shot down over the Pacific. He was not yet 41st president of the United States.

“All of us at Yale have such respect for President Bush,” Beckett said. “All of us in athletics know how much he cared about us. It’s a tough, tough day to know we lost a special man.”

“He and his wife were American treasures,” Yale coach John Stuper said. “They transcended politics. Admired by people of all political stripes. If you look at President Bush’s career, there was virtually nothing he didn’t do. America has never had a more faithful and loyal servant.”

It was April 2001 when Bush reached out to Beckett. It was the school’s tercentennial and Bush wanted to see if he could take a visit to Yale Field.

“It happened that we were having a practice that day, and he said, ‘Tom, would it be OK if I talked to the boys?’ ” Beckett said. “Coach Stuper was addressing the team on the third-base line and we were coming in from that side. So his back was to us.

“The team saw President Bush and his Secret Service team and they were transfixed. So John suddenly turned around. Wow, it was a tremendous moment.”

It was the first time Stuper, the former major league pitcher, met Bush. He visited with the team for 15 minutes.

“He thanked them for taking great pride in their efforts in both the classroom and on the field,” Beckett said. “He was so humble and caring. It was great.”

Bush wrote Beckett a note afterward to thank him.

“He said he was so inspired that he wanted to suit up,” Beckett said.

Bush had suited up for Yale from 1945 to 1948. He helped lead the Bulldogs to the finals of the College World Series against Cal in 1947. A few weeks after that pregame photo with Ruth — Babe donated his manuscript to the Yale Library — Bush would help lead them back to the national championship game against USC. Bush had a nickname in those days, one that carried on within his family. He was Poppy.

In 2015, when Yale played at Texas A&M, the team met Bush at his presidential library. The team saw the bat and glove he used at Yale.

“Every time he talked to the team, he was always curious how many players we had from Texas,” Stuper said. “We always have a good number. He would go around to the Texas guys, asking what city they were from. He always wanted to meet the current captain.”

After Yale had amassed 34 wins in 2017 and scored its first NCAA Tournament win since 1992, upsetting Nebraska and beating Holy Cross before finally falling in the regional finals to Oregon State at Corvallis, Stupor got a message on the way home.

It was an invitation to visit George and Barbara Bush in Kennebunkport.

“He wanted to congratulate the men,” Beckett said. “So we got on a bus the next day and went to Maine.”

“It was such a special afternoon,” Stuper said.

The team spent an hour and half visiting and it was clear to Stuper how much Bush kept up with Yale baseball. It also happened to be Barbara Bush’s 92nd and final birthday.

“We practiced on the bus singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Mrs. Bush,” Beckett said. “After we had the opportunity to serenade her, she looked at President Bush and said, ‘George, these are wonderful Yale men. You’re a Yale man, why didn’t you ever sing to me?’

“He said, ‘Don’t you remember back in the day I sang to you as a member of the choral group from Yale?’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Sure you did, George’ ”

They were one of the great love stories, a marriage that lasted 73 years before Barbara passed in April.

Bush loved the Astros. He loved golf, the Walker Cup named after his grandfather. He parachuted out of planes on his 75th, 80th, 85th and 90th birthdays, because once you’ve been dumped in the Pacific surrounded by sharks and the enemy, what’s the worst that can happen? He flipped the coin before the Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl in Houston. He threw out the first pitch from a wheelchair in 2015 and 2016 and when he was too weak to do much more, he yelled “Play Ball!” after his president son threw out the first pitch at the 2017 World Series. When the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance awarded him the Gold Key in 1991, heck, he wanted to come to the dinner — but the Secret Service thought it was a bad idea.

There’s a video clip and I just can’t get it out of my mind: Opening Day 1989 in Baltimore and Orioles broadcaster John Miller introduced Bush to the crowd.

“He bats right-handed, he throws left,” Miller said. “He’s the 41st president of the United States.”

George H.W. Bush, redstriped tie flapping in the wind, climbed to the top of the Memorial Stadium mound. Like Jim Palmer. None of this toss it from halfway to home plate. He became the first president to throw the first pitch off the rubber.

Yet what is most striking about the video is the glove on Bush’s right hand and the left hand of Frank Robinson on the president’s shoulder. The glove was the first baseman’s mitt Bush used while playing for Yale, still oiled and kept at the ready in his desk drawer in the Oval Office.

This was 39 years ago, not 79; this wasn’t Norman Rockwell’s America. Yet here was the president, a kid pounding his glove, the crowd giving him a big ovation and Robinson, the first African-American manager, eagerly patting him on the back.

That scene seems impossible these days. That’s what the country has become. We’ve gotten ugly. This is not meant as a nuanced political point. Rather, it’s an observation on the death of a great American, a great sportsman, a great family man.

“He was a humble person and a world leader all in one,” Beckett said. “He had this great ability to let people know how much he cared.”

“In George Bush’s America,” Gerald Ford once said, “civility is never confused with weakness, nor are political differences mistaken for a holy war.”

Men like that, they deserve to throw the first pitch.