Franklin D. Roosevelt at Griffith Stadium for the Washington Senators game against the Boston Red Sox on April 24, 1934. (Via FDR Presidential Library and Museum)
The people have spoken. In an upset over first-round winner Richard Nixon, the United States’ 33rd and longest-serving president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has been selected by DCist readers as their choice to join the Washington Nationals’ lineup of racing presidents.
With 236, or about 18.5 percent of the 1,278 ballots cast, Roosevelt was selected to join the ranks of mascot versions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and his long-struggling distant cousin, Theodore Roosevelt.
The balloting began last week, after it was hinted that the Nationals were contemplating adding a new contestant to their fourth-inning sideshow. We decided to take action, and asked readers to choose from every president in U.S. history, including a few fictional executives. Even though the Nationals hinted in 2011 that John F. Kennedy could some day join the ranks of the racing presidents, we felt it worthwhile to give every president an even shake.
Nixon dominated the preliminary round of voting and became the easy frontrunner in for the runoff earlier this week. And Nixon also crushed the fictional competition, with his animated, decapitated self from Futurama besting all other fake presidents, including Kang.
Did Nationals fans want a villain?
Apparently not. Sanity prevailed, and instead a beloved figure like Franklin D. Roosevelt took the contest with a slim edge over Kennedy and a comfortable margin over the real Nixon. (Nixon’s head earned 109 votes, good enough for fifth place.)
Of course, Roosevelt, who was stricken with polio, governed from a wheelchair. But that shouldn’t be a prohibition. A mascot FDR could use a motorized chair to compete against his Mount Rushmore counterparts. And Roosevelt was plenty fond of baseball. Though his first year in office was the last time a D.C. team—the original Washington Senators—made the postseason until the Nats did it this year, he got to games often enough, though none after the United States entered World War II. In the 10 Senators games Roosevelt attended as president, the team went 5-5.
