On June 26, 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant brought the first professional team the White House (then called the President's Mansion) for a visit. Although his predecessor Andrew Johnson had also hosted a baseball team, this was the first time that all members of the team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, were paid ballplayers.

Grant had been president during the time when the National Baseball Association was formed and also when the National League was formed. There is no record of Grant ever attending any games during his presidency, but it was reported that when the undefeated Cincinnati Red Stocking played the Washington Nationals in 1869, Grant's carriage stopped by the outfield grass briefly while the game was going on. No one confirmed whether or not Grant was in the carriage.

When Grant was president, boys used to play baseball on the field that was behind the White House. It is said that Grant would sometimes join them to play. In the 1868 Presidential election campaign, Grant and Horatio Seymour were candidates for president. According to the book Baseball in Blue and Gray by George Kirsch, teams of their supporters once played a game against each other.

The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were unique in many ways. In the years after the Civil War, baseball’s popularity grew rapidly and thousands of American communities fielded teams. At first most players were members of high society: lawyers, bankers and merchants who were wealthy enough to train and play as a hobby. At first the National Association of Base Ball Players banned the practice of paying players to play the game. The belief up to then was that playing baseball for a reason other than for the love of the game was wrong. But human nature being what it is, some of the major clubs in the East and Midwest began ignoring the rule prohibiting professionalism and secretly hired talented young working-class players for their teams. The national association realized that it was a losing proposition to continue its rule against paying players, so after the 1868 season, the national association reversed its position and allowed for teams to pay players. The move recognized the reality that many players were already getting paid, and that was unlikely to change, so the league may as well recognize what was happening and even the field.

In spite of this, almost every club thought it was in poor taste to pay an entire roster of ball players. The Cincinnati Red Stockings, however, disagreed and they became the exception to the general practice. The Red Stockings were run by an ambitious young lawyer named Aaron Champion. Prior to the 1869 season, he set a budget of $10,000 for his payroll and he hired Harry Wright to captain and manage the team. The best player on the team was Wright's 22-year-old brother, George, who played shortstop. George Wright would end up finishing the 1869 season with a .633 batting average and hitting 49 home runs. Only one player actually came from Cincinnati. The rest were recruited from other teams around the nation.

The Red Stockings opened the season by winning 45 to 9. They kept winning and winning and winning by lopsided scores, eventually posting a record of 67 wins and no losses. It was near the end of their victorious road trip that the team was invited to the White House to meet the President. Grant was born in Ohio and it is said that he shared his cigars at the White House with members of the team.

Grant would eventually see a game in person, but this took place after his presidency. On May 1, 1883, the New York Gothams, later known as the Giants, played their first game in the National League. Among the 15,000 fans who came that day was Grant. The game was played at the Polo Grounds, which at that time was located just north of Central Park, at 110th Street. Today the site lies within the park. In the game, New York defeated the Boston Reds, 7–5, behind the pitching of Mickey Welch.

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