From The Dallas Morning News. Part I of II
Former President George H.W. Bush and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev threw out the first pitches at an A&M Consolidated baseball game on April 12, 2001. Gorbachev was visiting the area to receive the Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service.(eorge Bush Presidential Library )
By Kevin Sherrington
8:00 AM on Sep 4, 2022
Picture this: One fine spring day you’re at a high school baseball game in College Station and, in the line at the concession stand, you see a bald guy with a funny birthmark on his forehead. Buying a hot dog. Wait, isn’t that . . . ? Nah, couldn’t be. But that night, as you’re plowing through a plate of grande fajitas at On the Border, there he is again, walking in with former President George Bush, the original, and R.C. Slocum, another original. It’s him. The last leader of the Soviet Union. Purveyor of perestroika. The man who, upon his death Tuesday at 91, was hailed among the greatest agents of change for good in world history.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.
Gorby.
Slocum, the winningest football coach in Texas A&M history, won’t soon forget his dinner party on April 12, 2001.
“Former leader of the free world,” he said. “Former leader of the Soviet Union.
“Former shoeshine boy from Orange, Texas.”
https://jadserve.postrelease.com/tr...d2c204e0-579d-46fc-922e-bc1a6a6fe351&ntv_cr=1
Pretty big day, too, for Rex Sanders, who, in 2001, was near the end of a long run as baseball coach at A&M Consolidated. Listed among his accomplishments in a Hall of Fame career, between blurbs about coaching the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star team in 1990 and the Houston Area All-Star team in 2003, is this note: “hosting former President George Bush and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at a baseball game at A&M Consolidated’s Tiger Stadium in 2001.” Sanders was so overwhelmed, in fact, he asked the former president how it happened, and this is what Bush told him:
“You know, I wanted Gorby to see what the real America is. I’ve been to some of his cities and visited with him, but he’s never really got to see what America was really about.
“What better way to see what America is than to take him to a high school baseball game?”
Sanders knew something was up when his wife, Judy, showed up at practice one day. She went to all of his games, but never a practice. Something must have happened to one of their three kids. He ran over, expecting the worst. Judy handed him a slip of paper and told him he needed to call the number on it. Someone had been trying to reach him. President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to come to one of his games.
For the record, it was April 1. “Good joke,” he told her. “What do you want?” Next thing he knows, the press box and bleachers are sporting a new coat of paint and someone is telling him where the Secret Service agents will be positioned. Sanders didn’t tell his players about the special visitors until April 12, the day of a game against Cy-Fair.
Early in the afternoon, a caravan of black Suburbans wheeled into the parking lot of Tiger Stadium, and out of the lead vehicle popped George H.W. Bush. He and his wife, Barbara, were a fairly common sight those days around College Station because of the Bush Library on the A&M campus. But Sanders had never had an actual conversation with the 41st president. Not that you would have guessed they were strangers.
Bush grabbed Sanders’ hand, thanked him for letting them come, told him their other visitor was still shopping, then asked if they could go check out the grass. Sanders asked Bush to throw out the first pitch, and his guest reciprocated by inviting Sanders and his wife to a ceremony that evening, where he’d present Gorbachev with a public service award. Then Bush got to the point of why he wanted it just to be the two of them in the outfield.
Mikhail Gorbachev once visited College Station, where he got a taste of Texan culture
R.C. Slocum still finds it hard to believe that he had a Tex-Mex dinner with George H.W. Bush and the last leader of the Soviet Union.
Former President George H.W. Bush and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev threw out the first pitches at an A&M Consolidated baseball game on April 12, 2001. Gorbachev was visiting the area to receive the Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service.(eorge Bush Presidential Library )
By Kevin Sherrington
8:00 AM on Sep 4, 2022
Picture this: One fine spring day you’re at a high school baseball game in College Station and, in the line at the concession stand, you see a bald guy with a funny birthmark on his forehead. Buying a hot dog. Wait, isn’t that . . . ? Nah, couldn’t be. But that night, as you’re plowing through a plate of grande fajitas at On the Border, there he is again, walking in with former President George Bush, the original, and R.C. Slocum, another original. It’s him. The last leader of the Soviet Union. Purveyor of perestroika. The man who, upon his death Tuesday at 91, was hailed among the greatest agents of change for good in world history.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.
Gorby.
Slocum, the winningest football coach in Texas A&M history, won’t soon forget his dinner party on April 12, 2001.
“Former leader of the free world,” he said. “Former leader of the Soviet Union.
“Former shoeshine boy from Orange, Texas.”
https://jadserve.postrelease.com/tr...d2c204e0-579d-46fc-922e-bc1a6a6fe351&ntv_cr=1
Pretty big day, too, for Rex Sanders, who, in 2001, was near the end of a long run as baseball coach at A&M Consolidated. Listed among his accomplishments in a Hall of Fame career, between blurbs about coaching the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star team in 1990 and the Houston Area All-Star team in 2003, is this note: “hosting former President George Bush and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at a baseball game at A&M Consolidated’s Tiger Stadium in 2001.” Sanders was so overwhelmed, in fact, he asked the former president how it happened, and this is what Bush told him:
“You know, I wanted Gorby to see what the real America is. I’ve been to some of his cities and visited with him, but he’s never really got to see what America was really about.
“What better way to see what America is than to take him to a high school baseball game?”
Sanders knew something was up when his wife, Judy, showed up at practice one day. She went to all of his games, but never a practice. Something must have happened to one of their three kids. He ran over, expecting the worst. Judy handed him a slip of paper and told him he needed to call the number on it. Someone had been trying to reach him. President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to come to one of his games.
For the record, it was April 1. “Good joke,” he told her. “What do you want?” Next thing he knows, the press box and bleachers are sporting a new coat of paint and someone is telling him where the Secret Service agents will be positioned. Sanders didn’t tell his players about the special visitors until April 12, the day of a game against Cy-Fair.
Early in the afternoon, a caravan of black Suburbans wheeled into the parking lot of Tiger Stadium, and out of the lead vehicle popped George H.W. Bush. He and his wife, Barbara, were a fairly common sight those days around College Station because of the Bush Library on the A&M campus. But Sanders had never had an actual conversation with the 41st president. Not that you would have guessed they were strangers.
Bush grabbed Sanders’ hand, thanked him for letting them come, told him their other visitor was still shopping, then asked if they could go check out the grass. Sanders asked Bush to throw out the first pitch, and his guest reciprocated by inviting Sanders and his wife to a ceremony that evening, where he’d present Gorbachev with a public service award. Then Bush got to the point of why he wanted it just to be the two of them in the outfield.
