Last night, Olympic swimming sensation Katie Ledecky took to the mound at Nationals Park in Washington to throw the ceremonial first pitch before the Nats-Orioles game. The event became newsworthy for the way Ledecky made Nats star outfielder Bryce Harper stand there awkwardly holding her five Olympic medals, like a kid not sure what to do with his hands on middle school portrait day.
But as it turns out, Ledecky threw a pretty darn good pitch, too. Which got us wondering: How did her pitch stack up against some of the best (and worst) ceremonial pitches of all time?
So we pulled this 2014 graphic on ceremonial pitches out of storage, and using the patented Wonkblog Eyeballin' It Method we watched some videos of Ledecky's pitch and placed roughly where her ball ended up on the graphic. Here's how she did.
Ledecky's ball is low and outside — just at the margins of the strike zone. It's a pretty decent first pitch, all things considered. She threw a better ball than Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson did in 2014 — and without the benefit of Johnson's aerodynamic mullet.
Ledecky throws a meaner pitch than noted dad-jeans aficionado and 44th president of the United States Barack Obama. Stone Cold Steve Austin can't hold a candle to her. Rapper 50 Cent could probably practice fastballs for the rest of his life and not throw a Ledecky-caliber pitch, if his infamously horrible 2014 pitch is any indication.
Wonkblog had previously considered rapper Snoop Dogg to be the gold standard of celebrity first pitches, based on his performance in Chicago in 2012. So you can imagine our shock and disappointment when he threw a stinker recently at a Padres game that would have made even 50 Cent cringe.
So while we can officially rank Ledecky ahead of Snoop Dogg, she's still just a bit behind the all-time great performance of President George W. Bush, whose near-perfect pitch in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was just the salve a wounded nation needed.
Strictly speaking, actor Matthew McConaughey also threw a better pitch than Ledecky in 2009. But the Wonkblog Athletics Committee has determined that his subsequent appearance in a series of insufferable Lincoln ads has rendered him ineligible for any pitching honors.
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