Put Me In Coach, I'm Ready to Lie

If only Trump had stuck with his promising baseball career instead of pursuing his lifetime goal of losing billions of dollars and hosting a reality TV show.  Trump has been bragging for years (yes, if his mouth is moving he's bragging/lying) about his stellar high school baseball prowess and the fact that professional teams were sending scouts to his military high school, New York Military Academy, to evaluate him.  Problem with this is that none of it is true.  

I know you're shocked, but nothing that Trump says about his baseball skills are remotely accurate.  For example, Trump tells a story about hitting a game wining home run and his excitement at seeing the headline in the local paper.

“I will never forget […] the first time I saw my name in the newspaper,” he continued. “It was when I got the winning home run in a game between our academy and Cornwall High School. It was in 1964 and it was in a little local paper. It simply said, TRUMP HOMERS TO WIN THE GAME. I just loved it and I will never forget it. It was better than actually hitting the home run.”

The problem with this glorious Trump remembrance?  It appears to not have happened. 

...After combing the Evening News and the Cornwall Local, the only local newspapers to regularly cover NYMA sports, and doing an extensive search on Newspapers.com, I’ve been unable to find “TRUMP HOMERS TO WIN THE GAME” in any local paper...

Perhaps that’s because in 1964, NYMA didn’t play Cornwall High School, according to the schedule in its yearbook. They didn’t play in 1963, either.

Perhaps Trump's did have a game winning hit back in 1963 or 1964, but this conversation recalled by one of Trump's teammates seems to be more in line with the records of Trump's less than stellar hitting abilities.

"We were walking together near the baseball field where, he reminded me, he’d played exceptionally well. He demanded that I tell him the story of one of his greatest games. 'The bases were loaded,' I told him. 'We were losing by three. You hit the ball just over the third baseman’s head. Neither the third baseman nor the left fielder could get to the ball in time. All four of our runs came in; we won the game.' 'No,' he [Trump] said. 'That’s not the way it happened. I want you to remember this: I hit the ball out of the ballpark! Remember that. I hit it out of the ballpark!' Ballpark? I thought. We were talking about a high school practice field. There was no park to hit a ball out of. And anyway, his hit was a blooper the fielders misplayed."

Local newspapers also give some insight into Trump's prowess as a hitter.  Keep in mind that Trump wasn't playing at a big school in a highly competitive league, so to interest professional scouts, Trump would have to put up some big hitting numbers.  However, based on limited existing records, it appears that Trump was a lifetime .138 hitter.  

Combined, the nine box scores I unearthed give Trump a 4 for 29 batting record in his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons, with three runs batted in and a single run scored. Trump’s batting average in those nine games: an underwhelming .138. (I found one additional mention of a hit and another of a hitless game in games that didn’t have box scores. 

When you consider Trump daily menu of lies, his misremembrances of his high school baseball career aren't really germane.  However, they do provide a clear insight into his character.  His willingness to lie about the most insignificant events of his past is a simple indication of his willingness to lie about virtually every aspect of the present.