Congressional Baseball

It’s October and baseball is in the air. Divisional playoffs, league championship series, and the World Series are well-known staples of autumn each year.  There is a lesser-known baseball game, however, that occurs each summer – the Congressional Baseball Game. This contest between a Republican team and a Democrat team began in 1909 (organized by Representative John Tener of Pennsylvania, a former professional baseball player) and was inconsistently scheduled until 1962 when it became an annual event. That was the year Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts revived the traditional congressional baseball game with the support of a new Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, instituting a best-of-five series. Team members each wear uniforms of their home states and/or districts.

Only members of the House played from 1909 to 1949, although there’s no record of any rule prohibiting Senators from playing as well. Senator Harry Cain of Washington became the first when he joined the Republican team in 1950; since that time both senators and representatives made up both teams. Occasionally former professional baseball players were elected to Congress and would become stars of the game. For example, the Republican team won each year former pitcher Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizel took the mound. In 1971 Delegate Walter Fauntroy of the District of Columbia and Representative Ronald Dellums of California joined the Democrats team becoming the first African-American participants. The first women to break into the lineup were Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas in 1993.

The popularity of the Congressional Baseball Game has helped it evolve into a fundraiser for three DC area charities: The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, the Washington Literacy Council, and the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation. It is also a hot topic in Congress, it seems.  A quick search of the Congressional Record on Congress.gov (since 1995) using “Congressional Baseball Game” brought up 54 hits!  (pun intended)

For additional information please see the following:

• The Congressional Baseball Game for Charity home site for the game
• Information and video about the best-of-five game series trophy
• History, Art & Archives section at the U.S. House of Representatives includes statistics, photographs, and other related materials
• Oral Histories of the Congressional Baseball Game
• Three-minute YouTube video of the 2014 game