U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a longtime avid fan of the New York Yankees baseball team, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Saturday’s game against the Boston Red Sox.

A child of Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in the Bronx not far from where the Yankees play. Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate last month, is the first Hispanic justice on the high court.

The Yankees said ceremonial first pitches by Sotomayor and by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli on Friday will take place during the team’s final regular season homestand to commemorate Hispanic heritage month.

“Having Justice Sotomayor, a South Bronx native, participate in our yearly Hispanic heritage month celebration is very exciting, as she is an inspiration to so many,” Manuel Garcia, Yankees Director of Latino Affairs, said. “We are proud to welcome her and President Martinelli to our new home.”

The Yankees, with the best record in baseball, are playing in a new stadium this season.

Sotomayor had a famous brush with Major League Baseball when she was a District Court judge with a decision that helped end the baseball strike of 1994-1995. “Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball,” Obama said in nominating her to the Supreme Court.

For Sotomayor’s official duties as a justice, the Supreme Court will next meet in a private conference next Tuesday and the new term officially begins on Oct. 5.

She is not the only baseball fan on the nine-member court. Justice Samuel Alito is known as a longtime supporter of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Photo credit: Reuters/Robert Sorbo (New York Yankees starting pitcher A.J. Burnett)

Barack Obama made his presidential pitching debut on Tuesday at the All-Star Game in St. Louis, but not before getting a little practice and a bit of advice.

“I’m telling him, ‘Follow through,’” said Willie Mays.

The 78-year-old Giants Hall-of-Famer traveled on Air Force One with Obama from Michigan to St. Louis, where the president threw out the first pitch.

“He’s gonna do fine, I guarantee you. He’ll be fine. I just want to make sure he follows through,” said the Say Hey Kid.

Mays was an appropriate guest for Obama to take to the game. Ted Williams once said, “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.” He played in 24 of them.

The baseball legend, who said he was making his first flight on Air Force One, had kind words for the president.

“I dreamed about this day, not being on Air Force One, but dreamed about someone in my race being president. Not knowing that anyone would be. But I reminded him that I cried for most of the night in Chicago,” Mays said, referring to Election Day last November.

Mays, who faced prejudice and discrimination as one of the early black players in Major League Baseball, said he stayed up all night following the vote.

“I was so proud. So that tells me all the things I went through, it was for good things,” Mays said. “So I’m just proud of him, you know. He may be proud of something else. But I’m proud of him, what he stands for.”

Obama was apparently concerned enough about his pitching responsibilities to get in a little practice at the White House ahead of the game. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama had been throwing a ball around with an aide.

Asked about it after an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday morning with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, the president said, “Well, I think it’s fair to say that I wanted to loosen up my arm a little bit.”

Although Obama tossed an opening pitch once as a senator, the All-Star Game was his first outing as president.

“You know, my general strategy the last time I threw a pitch was at the American League Championship Series and I just wanted to keep it high,” he said.

“There was no clock on it, I don’t know how fast it went — but if it exceeded 30 mph, I’d be surprised,” Obama added. “But it did clear the plate.”

The president, dressed in a Chicago White Sox jacket and greeted by cheers as well as a considerable number of boos, cleared the plate again on Tuesday night.

Or perhaps more accurately, he got close enough that Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, who did the catching honors, could lean out and grab it.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama throws opening pitch at All-Star Game; Obama and Mays descend steps of Air Force One)

President Barack Obama is on the final leg of his first European trip as president, traveling to Turkey for a two-day visit. On his first stop in a predominantly Muslim country, Obama sought to rebuild ties with Turkey – a country spanning Asia and Europe which the United States needs to help solve confrontations from Iran to Afghanistan.

He vowed to help Turkey resolve its differences with Armenia and said the United States was willing to provide further support against Kurdish separatist rebels based in northern Iraq.

In a nod to Turkey’s regional reach, economic power and diplomatic status Obama will spend the day in Ankara speaking to parlaiment and meeting with Turkish leaders before traveling to Istanbul in the evening.

At home, Obama’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates was set to announce his spending proposals at a 1:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) news conference. Gates has been putting the final touches on a fiscal 2010 core defense budget request of $533.7 billion which doesn’t include war funding.

North Korea’s rocket launch over the weekend may be good news for Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and other big Pentagon contractors that face possible program cuts. In light of Pyongyang’s missile test, the backers of a fledgling U.S. anti-missile shield have been pressing Gates to rethink plans to trim spending on missile defense.

The trip to Europe means Obama will miss the opening day of baseball for his beloved Chicago White Sox. Even though Monday’s opening day game against the Kansas City Royals was postponed due to forecasts of snow and high winds, the first fan won’t be back in the country in time for the game now scheduled for Tuesday.

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Photo credits:  REUTERS/Jim Young (Obama speaks at joint news conference with Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul in Ankara) ; REUTERS/Pool (Chicago White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd throws in play off game in October 2008)

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Pennsylvania native and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden hopes the Philadelphia Phillies’ baseball World Series win is a good omen for Tuesday’s presidential election.

“How about those Phillies?” Biden said at a rally in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

The Philadelphia Phillies won baseball’s World Series on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays, in a game watched by Biden’s wife, Jill, who like him is a rabid Phillies fan.

“I am on the campaign trail and she said: ‘Joe I am going to the (baseball) series,” Biden said.

Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said his wife appeared on a local Philadelphia radio station on Thursday and raved about the performance of Phillies pitcher Brad Ledge, who clinched the Phillies’ win by shutting down the Rays in the last inning of Wednesday’s game.

“It must have given her an idea because when I called her to say hello, she said, ‘Joe, you have to do with this campaign what Brad did that night.’ Lights out tonight, lights out …” he said.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Bill Kostroun (Phillies’ Geoff Jenkins sprays fans with champagne after the Phillies defeated Tampa Bay to win the World Series)

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA - Sports are a natural metaphor for political campaigns — both have winners and losers, competing teams, and a final score.

In basketball-mad Indiana, Democrat Hillary Clinton held a rally on Indiana University’s basketball court in Bloomington on Friday, while rival Barack Obama played a three-on-three game with supporters later that night.

On Saturday, Clinton headed to South Bend, best known as home to Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish football team. Former president Ronald Reagan, a Republican, laid claim to that franchise long ago, thanks to his portrayal of Irish football player George “the Gipper” Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne: All American.”

Clinton opted to hold a rally at the city’s minor-league baseball park, where she received a jersey of the home Silver Hawks, a Single A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“We know you’re going to knock it out of the park,” former Gov. Joe Kernan told Clinton in his opening remarks.

When Clinton came to bat, here’s what she said:

“We’re going to hit some of those balls out this stadium and out of our country stadium because we’re going to go to bat and fix America together.”

“We are going to go fight for America, we’re going to round the bases, we’re going to score a lot of runs and we’re going to feel really good about the home team, the American team, the team we’re all a part of,” she continued.

A rocky first inning. But Clinton handled the next eight innings of her stump speech smoothly, promising to spur economic development, end the Iraq war and implement a universal health care system, and challenging Obama to an unmoderated debate.

So how should the New York senator’s box score read? 4 for 5 with one strikeout? Or should that be marked an error?

Unfortunately, the final score in this game won’t be known until May 6, when Hoosiers head to the polls.

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Photo: Frank Polich - Hillary Clinton campaigns in South Bend, Indiana.

WASHINGTON - Democratic voters in Pennsylvania are hearing all about presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s views on issues like Iraq and the economy — but where does he stand on those small but all-important, getting-to-know-you questions?

For instance, does the Illinois senator prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? “Rolling Stones,” he answered without hesitation in a Tuesday interview with NBC’s “Today Show.”

And he went on in rapid-fire succession, not shying away even from his recent underwhelming performance in a Pennsylvania bowling alley.

COFFEE OR TEA? — “Tea.”

WHICH PRESIDENT WOULD HE MOST WANT TO BE LIKE? — “Lincoln.”

WHY? — “He never lost sight of the humanity of even those who opposed him.”

IS HE SURE GOD EXISTS? — “Yes.”

HOW OFTEN DOES HE PRAY? — “Once a day, sometimes twice a day. It depends on the day.”

BEST THING HIS MOTHER TAUGHT HIM? — “Empathy, making sure that you can see the world through somebody else’s eyes, stand in their shoes. I think that’s the basis for kindness and compassion.”

WHICH MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM DOES HE LIKE, THE CHICAGO CUBS OR CHICAGO WHITE SOX ? — “White Sox”

BASKETBALL OR BOWLING? — “Basketball.”

NOT BOWLING? — “Not bowling. You saw those gutter balls. But you know what? That shows that I’m willing to try new things.”

WHAT MAKES HIM LOSE SLEEP? — “When I lose sleep at night, it is not because I am worrying about what’s going to happen in Pennsylvania or Indiana or how we’re going to resolve this contest. I lose sleep at night because I think about being president and all the challenges we have to face out there.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Cohn (Obama speaks at a campaign event in Pittsburgh on March 28)