WASHINGTON -- After President Clinton's negotiations to end the baseball strike ended in failure, the president was asked if he would throw out the ceremonial first ball on Opening Day if major-league owners fielded replacement players.
That night Clinton ducked the question as if it were a high hard one from Ben McDonald. Yesterday, though, White House press secretary Mike McCurry said the First Fan would, in effect, honor the players' picket lines.
The big lefty will not be throwing out the first ball if the owners follow through on their plan to have replacement teams, McCurry said, a stance he described as being "consistent with the president's view on the issue of strike replacements and replacement workers generally."
"He hasn't given it great thought, but it's impossible to imagine that he would throw out the first pitch of a game that didn't represent the best that Major League Baseball has to offer," McCurry said. "And it certainly isn't representing the best to use replacement players."