Then-Vice President Joe Biden visits with members of the military at Nationals Park during a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia Phillies, Tuesday, July 31, 2012, in Washington.

Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

Hours after Joe Biden rounded the bases on his 2020 presidential election bid, the Washington Nationals swung for the fences.

On Saturday night, as President-elect Biden addressed the country in a victory speech, the Nationals invited Biden to throw out the ceremonial first pitch during next season’s Opening Day. The Nationals are currently scheduled to take on the New York Mets at Nats Park on April 1.

“We look forward to hosting President-Elect Biden on Opening Day of the 2021 season,” the team said in a statement. “We’re excited to continue the long-standing tradition of sitting Presidents throwing out the first pitch at home of the national pastime in our nation’s capital.”

A spokesperson for the president-elect did not immediately respond to DCist/WAMU’s request for comment about accepting the offer.

Every president since Gerald Ford has thrown out a first pitch as president at a big league park, save for one. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that the Nationals did invite President Trump to have the honor — but he declined, citing a “scheduling conflict.”

In 2009, President Barack Obama also declined to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day. He did make his pitch the next year while wearing a Nats jacket and a Chicago White Sox cap.

Biden, as vice president, previously threw a first pitch in 2009 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. (It was a bit high.) George W. Bush, an avid baseball fan and one-time co-owner of the Texas Rangers, threw out the first pitch twice at a Nationals game, once in 2005 at RFK Stadium and again in 2008 when Nats Park first opened.

William Howard Taft was the first president to throw out a first pitch in 1910.

While Trump never threw out a first pitch as a president, he did toss one in 2006 at Fenway Park and in 2004 for a minor league game after landing his helicopter in center field. And last fall, he attended Game 5 of the 2019 World Series at Nats Park, where some sections of the crowd jeered at him and chanted “lock him up.”

Nats Park became a voting center for the first time this past election.

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