Eisenhower baseball controversy

The Eisenhower baseball controversy refers to the allegations that the former general and President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, played minor league (semi-professional) baseball for Junction City in the Central Kansas League the year before he attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. The story goes that he did so under the assumed name of "Wilson." The question of whether Dwight Eisenhower played semi-professional baseball is not well documented and is subject to various interpretations.

While at the Academy, Eisenhower played American football for West Point. This would not be an issue except that in order to play college football, one must have never played a sport for money, because doing so causes forfeiture of an athlete's amateur status. If Eisenhower did in fact play baseball for money, it would have been in violation of the Cadet Honor Code. One source contends that Eisenhower even signed a voucher claiming that he had never played sports for money. The Eisenhower Presidential Library claimed in an e-mail that "We do not have any documentation as to whether Ike signed a voucher when he arrived at West Point. It would be interesting to see if West Point required this in 1911."

The Cadet Honor Code, formalized in the 1920s, states simply that:

"A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

Though Eisenhower graduated in 1915, before the formalization of the Honor Code, playing amateur football while having formerly been a professional athlete, would constitute either lying, cheating, or both. In the early, informal, sometimes characterized as vigilante justice, phase of the Honor System, it is unclear if Eisenhower would have graduated to become an officer in the United States Army.

Eisenhower long had aspirations of being a professional baseball player. He is quoted as saying:

When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.

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