George Washington, George III and baseball

'There’s no record that the first president of the US ever played [baseball]' … a bronze statue at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Re Patrick Russell’s agonised baseball query (Letters, 2 February), that wonderful Guardian-lover Marcus Cunliffe used to regale his American friends with the question: “What is the baseballing difference between George Washington and George III?” The answer: there’s no record that the first president of the US ever played the game, whereas Lady Hervey noted in 1748 of the young Prince George that she had seen him playing with the other royal children “at baseball, a play all who are or have been schoolboys are well acquainted with”. She noted also that “the ladies as well as the gentlemen join in the amusement”. There’s a full reference to be found in Cunliffe’s essay The Two Georges in his In Search of America: Transatlantic Essays 1951-1990.
John Roberts
Jedburgh, Borders