Pic of the Week

President Obama greets the players of the Tampa Bay Rays
before their exhibition game in Havana on Tuesday.
Cuban president Raul Castro looks on at center.

There were probably better photographs available this week, but the Cuba game was significant for more than baseball, and I chose this week to acknowledge that.

Pic of the Week

President Obama contemplates a Jackie Robinson
jersey during the president's visit to the Hall of Fame.

President Obama on Thursday became the first sitting president to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., a visit intended to provide visuals for touting the economic value of tourism.

This photo came from the substantial exhibit at the museum on the Negro Leagues and the breaking of the color barrier, and this jersey is not usually so exposed. (The president was photographed holding a Babe Ruth bat and a Joe DiMaggio glove, relics the normal visitor doesn't get to touch; the Hall obviously set things up specially for the presidential tour.)

The blackball exhibit is one of the focal points of the museum, and the symbolic connection between Robinson and Obama is pretty obvious. No. 42 is one of the many giants on whose shoulders Obama stands.

And this statement seems to me self-evident: Racism didn't disappear from American life when a black man was elected president any more than it disappeared from baseball when a black man played for a major league team.

Baseball and Election Day notes

Ann Romney, wife of GOP presidential nominee Mitt
Romney, at Game 4 of the World Series. 

On this "I Voted" sticker day, a few threads connecting the election and the National Pastime:

Terry Ryan, the Twins general manager, and Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee for vice-president, are related -- cousins of one degree or another. They're both from Janesville, Wis, and there are apparently a lot of Ryans there.

President Obama irked a few
people by wearing his White Sox
apparel rather than generic
All-Star Game gear when
throwing a first pitch at the
2009 All-Star Game.

President Obama is well-known to be a White Sox fan. Mitt Romney's baseball loyalities are a bit less well defined; as a former governor of Massachusetts, he probably had to at least pretend to be a Red Sox fan, but he grew up in Michigan, and his wife, Ann, wore a Tigers cap to Game 4 of the World Series last month. That was probably a sincere rooting interest, but it was politically astute as well. There aren't a lot of GOP votes in San Francisco anyway, and Michigan is closer than California to being a swing state.

Major League Baseball has a political action committee, the MLB Commissioner's Office PAC, created in 2001. A story in a recent Baseball America said the PAC had raised $465,700 for the 2012 election cycle; the teams leading in contributions are the Giants ($46,750) and the Twins ($30,000). Historically, the PAC has given more to Democrats (58.9 percent) than to Republicans (44.1 percent).

The Pohlads have long been contributors to DFL coffers; this listing of 2012 donations by team CEO Jim Pohlad totals $60,000, all to either the MLB PAC or to Democrats. The trio of brothers (Jim, Bob and Bill) had given more than $300,000 as of last summer to the group fighting the marriage amendment in Minnesota.

Mitt Romney's eldest son, Tagg, was director of marketing for the Los Angeles Dodgers for less than a year around 2005, when Frank and Jamie McCourt owned both the Dodgers and valuable real estate in downtown Boston (parking lots) and Daddy Romney was governor of Massachusetts. Tagg didn't last long, and this story from the Los Angeles Times paints an unflattering picture of his tenure and qualifications. Of course, pretty much everything from the McCourt era draws scorn in L.A. these days.

(Mitt? Tagg? There's some cheap, corny baseball pun to be made there ... and normally I'm the man to make cheap, corny baseball puns, but today I'll resist.)

Quotes, notes and comments

"There was a big controversy. I think Major League Baseball wanted him to wear the All-Star jacket, and he was intent on wearing his White Sox jacket. He prevailed in that."

—David Axelrod, President Obama's top political aide, and a Cubs fan to his boss's White Sox fan, on the president's role at the All-Star Game.

Comment: You gotta love this about Obama: He has a team he roots for, he embraces that team, and he doesn't hide it.

Hillary Clinton, in contrast, has called herself a Cubs fan and a Yankees fan, depending on what audience she's trying to appeal to.

* This from the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rogers: Don't overlook the Twins as a possible playoff team. They are 13-9 against the six teams in first place at the break. Only the Rays (10-6) had a better record, with no one else more than two games better than .500.

* The Tigers lost their best, or at least most talented, relief pitcher, Joel Zumaya. Zoom-zoom and his 100-mph-plus fastball is on the DL with yet another shoulder problem. At this point, one has to doubt he's ever going to be the same again.

He told the Detroit News: "I'm disgusted, upset, don't know what to think. Obviously, my arm's not feeling too good right now. My head's going in circles. There's only so many bullets your arm has."

*Everybody's writing about Joe Mauer.