Taft is new racing president

Photo by Mark Zuckerman / NATS INSIDER

William Howard Taft debuts at NatsFest on Saturday.

The Nationals unveiled a new racing president Saturday afternoon, one with a built-in connection to baseball and the kind of physique that could provide some comedic value.

William Howard Taft "agreed to terms" to be the Nationals' fifth racing president, "pending a physical," the club announced Friday night. Apparently the rotund, 300-pound, 27th Commander-in-Chief was cleared by doctors, because he was officially unveiled Saturday afternoon at NatsFest to roaring applause from the crowd.

Taft joins George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt in the expanded racing presidents shtick, highlighted by the nightly race in the middle of the fourth inning. "Bill," as the mascot will be called, already has a built-in rivalry with Teddy, who in 1912 attempted to defeat his successor for the Republican Party nomination and ultimately chose to create the "Bull Moose" Party and run as a third-party candidate. (Both wound up losing to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.)

Taft also has a strong connection to baseball. On April 14, 1910, he threw out the first pitch before the Senators' game against the

Instant analysis: Nats 5, Phillies 1

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Ryan Zimmerman is congratulated by Michael Morse after homering in the fourth.

Game in a nutshell: Knowing they could clinch the No. 1 seed for the NL playoffs with a victory today -- regardless of the result of the Reds' game tonight in St. Louis -- the Nationals went out and took care of business. Edwin Jackson tossed 6 2/3 strong innings to rebound from his disastrous last start. Ryan Zimmerman, Tyler Moore and Michael Morse all blasted home runs to pace the offensive attack. Shoot, they even let Teddy win the Presidents Race for the first time, eliciting a huge roar from the announced crowd of 37,075. And by finishing off the Phillies, the Nationals finished with a 98-64 record, locking up the top seed for the postseason. Game 1 of the NLDS will be Sunday at the winner of Friday's Wild Card game between the Braves and Cardinals, with Game 2 on Monday. The series will come to Nationals Park for Games 3-5 Wednesday through Friday. The Reds and Giants will open their NLDS on Saturday in San Francisco.

Hitting highlight: Who knew all it would take to bring the Nationals' bats alive was a giant-headed Teddy winning the Presidents Race?

Teddy wins

Photo by Mark Zuckerman / NATS INSIDER

Teddy crosses the finish line first, at long last.

Updated at 6:25 p.m.

In a season of plenty of baseball firsts for the Nationals, perhaps the biggest first of them all just happened: Teddy won the Presidents Race.

OK, so maybe a victory by the giant-headed mascot resembling the old Rough Rider isn't quite as significant as the Nationals' first-ever NL East title and postseason appearance. But for plenty of fans who have cheered him on in vain since the live-action race began in the summer of 2006 at RFK Stadium, this was no small accomplishment.

Loser of 525 consecutive races prior to this afternoon, Teddy faced long odds to finally beat his three counterparts in the Nationals' regular-season finale against the Phillies. And when he burst out of the gate in center field well behind George, Tom and Abe in the middle of the fourth inning wearing gold Under Armor cleats, things didn't look good.

But then, one of those unfortunate calamities that befell Teddy so many times over the years finally did in the other presidents. A makeshift