In 1910, William Howard Taft was the first president to throw out the ceremonial "first pitch" of a baseball season. He is also credited by some as having initiated baseball's "seventh-inning stretch." At one game he attended, Taft rose to his feet after the visiting team finished batting in the seventh inning. Thinking the president was leaving the game, fans around him rose in respect. But Taft simply stretched out and sat down again as the home team came to bat, and the fans around him did the same.

Taft also enjoyed golfing. He often played with Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son.