By Jim Ecker
April 1, 2009

Ben Ford has a special reason for remembering what happened on April 5, 2004. He met President George W. Bush that day, which was pretty cool, and he pitched in the opening game of the 2004 Major League season for the Milwaukee Brewers.

It was the only time in his big-league career that Ford made an opening-day roster, so it was a good day.

It happened at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Ford doesn’t remember why Bush was in St. Louis, but he was. The Cardinals were not hoisting any championship banners that year, but maybe the president – a former baseball man himself with the Texas Rangers – was in town for a political event.

In any case, Secret Service agents did a quick sweep of the Milwaukee clubhouse before the game and the president arrived.

“He came around and shook everybody’s hand and introduced himself,” said Ford. “He said, ‘Hey, I’m President Bush, it’s nice to meet you.’ I said, ‘Hi, I’m Ben Ford.’ I shook his hand.’”

Ford did not give Bush any political advice, nothing like “Hey, go catch Bin Laden.”

“I’m pretty sure a couple of guys kind of cracked some jokes,” he recalled. “Everybody was pretty quiet about it. You really don’t want to say anything inappropriate to him.”

Bush amiably posed for a team picture with the Brewers in the clubhouse. “Then he took off,” said Ford.

Both teams lined up along the foul lines for the pre-game introductions, Bush threw out the first pitch and Ford, then 28, headed to the bullpen, not knowing if he’d get to pitch that day or not. It turns out, he did.

The Brewers needed somebody in middle relief and Ford got the call. He gave up two runs. ‘”Pujols hit a double down the line,” he recalled.

He thinks he fanned Jim Edmonds, but isn’t sure. In any case, the Brewers won the ballgame, 8-6, before 49,149 fans. Ford did not get the decision, but contributed to the victory. It was a good day. He met the president and he pitched on opening day.

Ford, now 33 and retired from baseball, appeared in eight games for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1998 when he was just 23 years old. He pitched in four games for the New York Yankees in 2000, the year they won the World Series, and got into 19 games with Milwaukee in 2004 before a shoulder injury ended his career.

He won one game in the big leagues. It came in 2004 against the Diamondbacks, his original team. The winning pitcher that day was Ben Ford. The loser? Randy Johnson.

“I didn’t pitch good at all,” said Ford, who gave up the lead on a three-run homer. “Then we came back in the bottom half of the inning and scored like eight runs. Yeah, it was a win, but it wasn’t a good quality one.”

The opening day of the 2009 season this year is April 5, with Atlanta at Philadelphia. That’s the same day as the opener in 2004. “It seems like quite awhile ago,” he said.

Ford didn’t know if he’d make the Brewers in 2004. In fact, he doubted he would. A few days before spring training ended, he got called into a meeting with Manager Ned Yost, General Manager Doug Melvin and pitching coach Mike Maddox. By then, he figured it would be good news. There were only 12 pitchers still in camp, and the Brewers said they’d keep 12 on the staff. In addition, fellow relief pitchers Dave Burba and Adrian Hernandez were called into the same meeting.

“When they send you down or release you, they don’t bring three guys in at once,” said Ford, speaking from experience.

He made the club. He was a Brewer, starting with Opening Day.

“It was a relief. And I was real excited, of course,” he said.

The Brewers went straight from spring training in Arizona to St. Louis, which created a small problem. The Brewers had a dress code for the regular season, but Ford was not prepared. He didn’t think he’d make the team when spring training began and didn’t pack a sports coat.

“I had to borrow a jacket from somebody, because I didn’t have one,” he said.

He thinks he borrowed a sports coat from Dan Kolb, a teammate, but cannot vouch for that minor detail.

The Brewers worked out in St. Louis the day before the opener. Ford’s parents, Jerry and Betty, drove down from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the game (no, not President Jerry Ford; the other Jerry Ford, the president of Perfect Game USA).

It was opening day, when hope springs eternal.

“Actually, I was pretty relaxed,” said Ford, reflecting. “I’d been up (in the big leagues) before, so it didn’t really affect me as much as it would other people, probably. But I’m pretty sure that just about every guy on opening day has some butterflies, even guys who have been there for 10 or 15 years.”

It was Ford’s first opening day, and his last. He hurt his shoulder in mid-May of 2004, went on a rehab assignment and came back to finish the season with the Brewers in September. He tried to pitch again in spring training in 2005, but had to retire.

“It just hurt too bad,” he said.

After making the big leagues at 23, Ford was hoping for a long, productive career. It didn’t turn out that way, but he got to pitch for three major league teams, spent time in the Yankees clubhouse with Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, met the president and pitched on Opening Day.

“I had some rough luck, and I didn’t pitch as well as I’d hoped sometimes,” said Ford, now the National BCS Director for Perfect Game USA in Cedar Rapids. “But I can’t complain about how much time I do have (in the majors) and how lucky I was.”