Proclamation 5212—Harmon Killebrew Day, 1984

On August 12, 1984, Harmon Killebrew will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. As a seventeen-year-old, Harmon Killebrew signed with the late Washington Senators and played with that franchise in the Nation's Capital and after its transfer to Minnesota. In an illustrious career, he hit 573 home runs, second only to Babe Ruth among all players in American League history. Harmon Killebrew was a member of the American League All-Star team on eleven occasions, and in 1969, he hit 49 home runs and batted in 140 runs and was named the American League's Most Valuable Player.

In honoring Harmon Killebrew, we recognize the accomplishments of the other baseball immortals enshrined in Cooperstown and the many contributions the sport has made to American culture and myth. Harmon Killebrew is the latest in a lengthy list of players who, in the words of Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court, "have sparked the diamond and its environs and that have provided tinder for recaptured thrills, for reminiscence and comparisons, and for conversation and anticipation... and all other happenings, habits, and superstitions about and around baseball that have made it the 'national pastime' or, depending upon the point of view, 'the great American tragedy'."

The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 285, has designated June 13, 1984, as "Harmon Killebrew Day" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 13, 1984, as Harmon Killebrew Day, and I call upon the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eighth.

RONALD REAGAN