(Cont’d)
“… Many grown-ups recall high school glory. Far fewer can cite newspaper articles as proof. Except it seems likely that Trump got his own headline wrong—or made it up entirely. 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, nor “TRUMP WINS GAME FOR NYMA,” a headline he’d mention to D’Antonio for his book
The Truth About Trump.
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.
What I have been able to find is box scores from some of Trump’s games, and the picture they paint of the player is not pretty.
As for Willie McCovey, he was eight years older than Trump. When Trump was a senior in high school, McCovey was in his fifth year in the major leagues and already an All-Star. …”
[Per the article, the guy who vouched for Trump’s baseball prowess over the years made a lot of claims prior to his death in 2016 (like that Dobias named Trump unofficial assistant coach his senior year) that seemed unlikely b/c he was the assistant coach, not head coach. Anyway, the reporter found microfiche of local HS baseball coverage from the time.]
“…
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.)
Nine games may seem like a small sample size, but NYMA played only a dozen or so games per baseball season, suggesting that Trump’s entire high school career spanned between 30 and 40 games.
It’s perhaps unfair to draw conclusions from a fraction of those games, but the box scores showed that in his sophomore year, Trump’s .100 batting average in those games was the lowest of any of the five players who had at least eight at-bats. As a junior, he did a tad better, hitting .200, albeit on a team that mustered a mere 11 hits over three games. Trump’s senior year, four teammates had more hits than he did. …”