President Donald Trump recently announced that he was invited to toss out the first pitch at the Yankees game on August 15, but the big event is now off. Trump revealed that he is so focused on the “China Virus” that he doesn’t have time to head to New York.
“Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!” he wrote .
He didn’t say whether these meetings were slated to happen before, during, or after the pitch. Critics were quick to point out that the president wasn’t too busy over the weekend to go golfing and questioned whether he was making an excuse to back out of the event.
Mia Farrow weighed in on the matter, suggesting that Trump was worried people would kneel during the national anthem, something that he has been fiercely critical of .
“Tweets the busy guy from his New Jersey golf course. He cant handle the fact that both teams will be taking a knee- even if before the anthem,” she tweeted .
Others took issue with his use of the term “China virus.”
The news comes just three days after he said he’d agreed to throw out the ceremonial pitch, as CNN reported. The announcement was made an hour before Dr. Anthony Fauci was set to throw the first pitch at Nationals Park in Washington.
The respected immunologist and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been the focus of White House criticism in recent weeks, appeared at the park to make the pitch, though it went far off the mark. Still, he received his own baseball card after his attempt.
Trump, on the other hand, continues to be the only president since 1910 to not throw out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game. He was apparently in talks to throw the first pitch at the 2019 World Series opener, but said that he didn’t want to wear “heavy armor” at the pitch because he’d “look too heavy.”
While critics have suggested that perhaps the president was afraid of looking foolish, he was reportedly a good baseball player in his youth.
It’s not the first event to be canceled in recent days. Trump announced that the Republican National Convention originally planned to be held in Florida was being called off as well. It was originally scheduled to take place in North Carolina, and was then moved to Jacksonville before being canceled altogether.