1. Poppy’s Glove

George Bush played baseball at Yale, as his father had, and he became captain of the university’s team in 1948. Poppy, as he was known in his years as a student, was a popular player, and he was known for his sense of humor.

When he was president, he kept his first baseman’s glove in a drawer of his desk in the Oval Office. He oiled it regularly and often used it to concentrate, putting it on to sock his hand in while he was thinking.

The sport brought Mr. Bush great pleasure. He and his wife, Barbara, often invited Houston Astros players for lunch in Texas, and he once brought President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to a Baltimore Orioles game. Even after vascular disease began to limit Mr. Bush’s movements, sports and the outdoors were still important to him. He still spent summers in Maine and enjoyed time on his speedboat, the Fidelity. “Nobody asks me to be on the team anymore,” he said in the HBO documentary “41.” But with boats, “I’m still in the game.”

[George Bush, a one-term president who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs, dies at 94.]