Ron DeSantis talks first pitches, Ivy League baseball and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New Hampshire

Ron DeSantis talked first pitches and first impressions of the Ivy League during a campaign stop in the Granite State, as he offered a new spin on his autobiographical introduction.

Speaking at a manufacturing plant in Merrimack, New Hampshire, the Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate recounted a story of how he had to throw a ceremonial toss ahead of a baseball game while he was in Congress … and the hapless public address announcer who didn’t understand the assignment.

“I was down in Florida and I was throwing out the first pitch at a college baseball game. And so they announced me, the PA announcer is like, ‘Now throwing out the first pitch,'” DeSantis recounted.

“So I go, I’m walking on the mound and he starts reading my official full biography,” DeSantis said.

With the catcher squatting and waiting for the throw, DeSantis said he was ready to go.

“So I kind of waved him off. I was like, ‘Hey, just cut it off,’ reared back, threw a perfect strike. Everyone starts cheering, whatever. And then when the cheers go down, he just kept reading my biography.”

The Governor noted that his performance was recognized, alongside first pitches from Presidents John Kennedy and George W. Bush, as one of the best of all time in an article thereafter.

“And part of the reason, they said, ‘He threw a perfect strike but he didn’t make the crowd sit through his entire biography.’ So, you know, however you can please people, you do,” DeSantis said.

The baseball stories weren’t over, however, as DeSantis told a somewhat more familiar story about culture shock when he arrived at Yale to play baseball.

“I showed up my first day there just like a kid from the west coast of Florida would do. I’m in flip flops, jean shorts, a T-shirt. And you know, that probably was fine where I came from, but when you’re dealing with kids that went to like Andover Academy and all that, it’s not exactly the way they used to do,” DeSantis related. “So it was kind of a culture shock for me.”

DeSantis went on to be captain of the Yale baseball team, of course, so he overcame that culture shock moment.

The Governor also noted, as he has routinely of late, that he went from Harvard Law School to military service in the war on terror.

“I also did some time at the terrorist detention facility in Gitmo,” DeSantis said, noting that the infamous Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was among “some of those people that were there.”