When the Washington Nationals play their home opener this afternoon at RFK Stadium, the president won't be there to toss out the ceremonial first pitch.

For the second straight year, reports the Washington Post, President Bush has turned down an invitation to participate in a Washington baseball tradition started by President William Howard Taft in 1910.

Mr. Bush was there in 2005, to help celebrate the return of the nation's pastime to the nation's capital after a 33-year absence, but last year he left the first-pitch duties to Vice President Cheney. This year, neither man will be there.

The Post says that except for during World Wars I and II, only two other presidents have missed two opening days in a row – Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon.

So why can't Mr. Bush, an ardent baseball fan and former part owner of the Texas Rangers, make it out to the ballpark this year? A White House spokeswoman says Mr. Bush will be in Washington today, but "it's not possible with his schedule. … It just wasn't going to work out."

With the president's approval ratings stuck below 40 percent, was Mr. Bush concerned that he might get booed? "No," the spokeswoman said. "Certainly not."

Going back to 9/11, Matthews found himself blown away not by Bush's political or military response but by his ability to throw a baseball. He compared the man to--I kid you not--Ernest Hemingway. "There are some things you can't fake," he explained breathlessly. "Either you can throw a strike from sixty feet or you can't. Either you can rise to the occasion on the mound at Yankee Stadium with 56,000 people watching or you can't. On Tuesday night, George W. Bush hit the strike zone in the House that Ruth Built.... This is about knowing what to do at the moment you have to do it--and then doing it. It's about that 'grace under pressure' that Hemingway gave as his very definition of courage."

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."