NYT: Araton: World Series Backdrop Comes in Red and Blue

Mayor Gavin Newsom vs. Mayor Tom Leppert (Batter vs. Pitcher Data is complete back to 1973 and mostly complete back to 1950…and still no luck!)

The men who manage the metropolises that will be competing when the World Series begins Wednesday night have played a little baseball in their time. In the case of the Dallas mayor, Tom Leppert, it was a few innings on the mound for the junior varsity at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California.

“They put me in when it was time for the outfielders to do wind sprints,” he said, jokingly.

Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco and a candidate for California lieutenant governor, was more serious about the game, starring at Redwood High School in Larkspur, Calif., and playing for two years at Santa Clara University.

“I was your standard 6-foot-3-inch first baseman,” he said.

Against the backdrop of the midterm elections, it seems fitting, even uncanny, that Leppert, a Republican, said he was a right-handed pitcher when he played and Newsom, a Democrat, proudly stated that he threw and hit from the left.

“Sort of the cliché,” he said.