Hill Takes to the Mound at NYU Graduation

In the annual affair that provides 6,000 young New Yorkers with their "only time I've ever been to the Bronx" story, NYU held its commencement ceremonies at Yankee Stadium this afternoon. After some hype that there would be a repeat streaking performance (of both last year's graduation and last night's Met game), Will Lopez will get to brag to his bros tonight that no one had the guts to do it this year.

The lack of naked bravado may have had something to do with secret service being on-hand this year since Hillary Clinton was in the house as commencement speaker. Hill stepped to the plate swinging for the fences when it came to baseball references throughout her speech. She began by saying she didn't think the crowd was permitted to cheer for a visitor in Yankee Stadium, ended by telling the grads that they had "made it to the big leagues, and you are up to bat," and along the way threw in a quote from A League of Their Own, though stopped shy of singing "The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Victory Song." (Her full speech is available here.)

She really played to her location with an extended analogy about the history of the Yankees and the school, saying:

You know, when the Yankees moved in to their old stadium next door in 1923, there was only person on the roster from west of St. Louis. Their team mostly looked the same, talked the same, and came from the same kind of cities and towns and rural areas across America. Think about the team that plays in this new stadium. It includes players from Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Panama, four other countries. The Dominican Republic alone is home to seven Yankees. In the same way, NYU has evolved as well. The university was founded to serve the City of New York. Today it serves the world.

The beefed up security due to the presence of the Secretary of State incidentally gave the stadium the authentic feeling of a home game these days with the Daily News mentioning that "the new stadium's premium seats behind home plate kept empty to serve as a kind of moat between students and field."