October 5- Birthdate of Chester Alan Arthur, 1829

"Good ballplayers make good citizens."

21st President, 1881-1885- Stated by Arthur as he welcomed the Cleveland Forest Citys Baseball, (some sources named them the Cleveland Blues) Club to the White House, April 13, 1883. Baseball grew in popularity in the United States in the late 1800's for many reasons. One such reason is that as people moved to the cities to work in factories as the Industrial Age created population shift, the pastoral and rural game of baseball became a popular spectator sport, reminding people of their roots. Presidents such as Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and U.S. Grant would sometimes watch baseball games on what was called the White Lot, which extended south from the back of the White House towards the where the Washington Monument is located. Most of that area is now called the Ellipse, where the national Christmas tree is erected each year. Baseball also came to be touted as "America's Game" and a way to heal sectional divisions created by the Civil War. Baseball players came to be seen as celebrities and many Civil War veterans played on teams as leagues grew and clubs from different cities and regions began to compete. Besides the Cleveland team, there were the Cincinnati Red Legs, the Boston Nationals (at one time the Beaneaters, then Braves) and the Americans (Red Sox), the New York Nationals (Gothams, then Giants), the New York Americans (Yankees), the Chicago White Stockings, the Philadelphia Quakers and Phillies, the St. Louis Browns, the Kansas City Blues, Monarchs, and Royals, and others too numerous to mention here. Presidents naturally gravitated to the baseball's celebrities and popularity. In time the sport came to be seen as truly "American" and was introduced to other nations primarily through military teams. With world wide popularity, we see many foreign born players (up to 28%) now competing in the Major Leagues. Sources "Baseball: The Presidents' Game", By William B. Mead and Paul Dickson, 1993, Farragut Publishing; "The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad", By Robert Elias, 2010, The New Press.