Did he or didn’t he? California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), that is, who has never sought to dispel the notion he played at Santa Clara University as part of a long baseball career.
Throughout his time in public life Newsom has been happy to go along with the narrative he enjoyed a partial scholarship based on his baseball prowess before an injury forced him to seek other diversions – professional and sporting.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom talks with Barry Bonds during Game One of the 2010 MLB World Series at AT&T Park on October 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
A story by Alexei Koseff of the Los Angeles Daily News on Thursday has challenged the governor on it by interviewing former players and friends.
The verdict? Koseff writes:
[…] Newsom never played an official game for Santa Clara University; he was a junior varsity recruit who played only during the fall tryouts his freshman and sophomore years, then left the baseball program before the regular season began. He does not appear on the Broncos’ all-time roster or in media guides published by the athletic department to preview the upcoming season.
A deeper look at his recruitment also reveals that Newsom’s admission to Santa Clara University — like so many of his formative opportunities — was substantially boosted by friends and acquaintances of his father, William Newsom, a San Francisco judge and financial adviser to the Gettys, the wealthy oil family. One associate connected Newsom to the baseball program when he was in high school, while his father’s best friend, then a member of the university’s board of regents, wrote him a letter of recommendation.
Mike Cummins, the assistant coach at Santa Clara while Newsom was there, said the governor has “embellished his baseball career a little bit at times.”
The article goes on to state Newsom has let the narrative ride as much through what he doesn’t say as what he does — a chastening sweep over his time at Santa Clara University that rarely gets more detailed than, “I played a little baseball. Just my first and second year,” as he told The Santa Clara, the student newspaper, in a 2008 interview.
File/Hall of Fame Willie Mays, left, poses with California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, before the start of an opening day baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the Seattle Mariners Tuesday, April 3, 2018, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Ultimately the report states Newsom has been more than happy to let his achievements on the diamond be inflated by others and by ignoring them appear to commend them.
Read the Los Angeles Daily News story in full here