Trump announced, then canceled, a Yankees pitch. Both were a surprise.

WASHINGTON – An hour before Dr. Anthony Fauci launched the first pitch in the season opener between the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals, President Donald Trump stood on the stage in the meeting room of the White House and stated that he had also been invited. throw your own opening pitch.

“Randy Levine is a great friend of mine to the Yankees,” Trump told reporters Thursday as he referred to the president of the baseball team as Fauci prepared to climb the mound. “And he asked me to pitch the first pitch, and I think I will do it on August 15 at Yankee Stadium.”

There was a problem: Trump had not been invited that day by the Yankees, according to a person with knowledge of Trump’s agenda. His announcement surprised both Yankees officials and White House staff.

But Trump was so upset by Fauci’s turn in the spotlight, said an official familiar with his reaction, that he had ordered his aides to call Yankees officials and follow through on a permanent offer from Levine to launch a pitch. opening. But no date was ever finalized.

After the president’s announcement, White House aides were quick to inform the team that it was actually booked on August 15, though they have not said what it plans to do. Over the weekend, Trump officially canceled.

“Due to my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and more, I will not be able to be in New York to launch the @Yankees opening launch on August 15,” Trump wrote in Twitter on Sunday, using a racist name for the coronavirus. “We will make it later in the season!”

And so the strained relationship continues between Trump, a president who hates to share media attention, and Fauci, a renowned infectious disease expert who doesn’t mind being the center of attention. He appeared in an InStyle magazine this month, resting (fully clothed) by the pool.

To be sure, there are bigger problems on the plate for either one: Trump is struggling to explain his administration’s missteps in a pandemic that has killed more than 148,000 Americans. Fauci is trying to assert himself as a public health voice for an administration that seems to have little interest in, and sometimes even less interest in, science.

Both men are baseball fans. Trump grew up playing the sport, and Fauci, in his Washington Nationals-themed coronavirus mask, has almost reached alternative pet status. Both are apparently too busy to be bogged down by baseball rivalries, but this is not the first time Trump has made such a request to fend off a possible eclipse.

In April, the day before Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the Air Force graduation ceremony in Colorado, Trump suddenly announced that he would speak at West Point. That made news for West Point officials.

Last week, Fauci was determined to come to the Nationals mound ready. Growing up in Brooklyn, he played shortstop on a local Catholic youth team. Days before the court on Thursday, he went to Horace Mann, an elementary school in northwest Washington, to rehearse on the lawn.

“I pitched and pitched,” he said in an interview Monday. “I threw out my arm. He hadn’t literally thrown a baseball in decades. After practicing, my arm dangled from my feet. “

But he said he made a fatal mistake. Without a baseball field at school to practice, he had to measure 60 feet (the distance from a major league mound to home plate), and he accidentally got close to 20 feet.

Once Fauci reached the mound in the National Park, he realized the vast expanse, and his visit went south. He raised his arm slightly, twisted, and tossed the ball diagonally onto the grass, away from Sean Doolittle, the Nationals player assigned to catch the field.

“He looked at me like I was like 500 feet away. That made me throw it much harder than I had been practicing, “said Fauci. “I fully calculated the distance from the mound.”

Fauci said his invitation from the Nationals came weeks ago as thanks from the team’s owner Ted Lerner’s family, after he advised them and club officials about the correct protocols for coronavirus testing and staying safe. while they play.

Appearances in the Fauci broadcast are generally controlled by the White House, but the appearance in Nationals Park did not have to go through the usual authorization process at the National Institutes of Health, which it takes in its other media and event requests. .

When asked if he had any advice on whether Trump could confirm an appointment with the Yankees, Fauci said the president should make sure to “throw high” and “with a big loft.”

“The worst thing to do is throw it away like I did,” he said.

Outside of the baseball field, Fauci’s stellar turnaround hasn’t gone so well at the White House.

In recent weeks, he questioned senior administration officials about the effort to curb his television appearances and criticized other officials who made derogatory comments about him.

“I think they now realize that that was not wise, because it only reflects negatively on them,” Fauci said this month of White House advisers, including Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, who wrote an opinion piece. questioning Fauci’s credibility.

As the prominence of the coronavirus task force faded in recent weeks, Fauci was left out of a new group of White House officials meeting on the virus, led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. , and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator.