I got goose bumps when I saw Abe Lincoln’s ball at the Oregon Historical Society’s exhibit of sport’s greats. It was made of deep brown leather, worn dark and shiny from presidential sweat and pounding. The famous ball is now retired and rests in a protective Plexiglas case, never to bounce again. That part was a little sad.

So what did Abe Lincoln do with his brown leather ball? Turns out he loved “fives” a game much like modern day handball or racquetball without the racquets. In this game teams of two used speed, strength and guile to try and slap the ball against the wall and out of the lunging reach of the other team. For a time starved up and coming politician the game was very convenient and could be played against walls and the sides of buildings.

Though by all accounts Mr. Lincoln was a workaholic before the word was coined, he loved to sneak out during the day for a game of “fives”. Recalled Dr. Preston H. Balhace, “When Mr. Lincoln went to the printing office for a talk or to get a lot of newspapers he often joined the boys in a game of “fives”…which furnishes a very active and exciting contest.”

Court Clerk Thomas W.S Kidd also watched Lincoln tear it up on the court, “(He was) as vigorously engaged in the sport as though his life depended on it. He would play until nearly exhausted.” According to Kidd Lincoln played “not only for the sport afforded but for the better reasons that they gave him recreation from office labor and the menial toil he made in the studious preparations for his professional duties.

Abe Lincoln, arguably one of the greatest Presidents that ever lived, a man whose day to day stresses were Atlas like, recognized the importance of physical activity and the incredible release it provides from the grind.

And if the modern wage slave sometimes feel cramped, tired and in the mood to knock off people’s hats after a long day at the office imagine what if felt like for Mr. Lincoln. He was a man who came later to the relatively sedentary pursuits of law and politics and grew up splitting wood, farming, wrestling and generally running amok in the wide open country.

So the next you feel the burdens of the work a day world piling up and the awful fatigue of office toil do like Mr. Lincoln did. Find some friends and a ball that bounces and have a game. If President Lincoln can make time to work out in his busy country uniting, slavery busting schedule to play so must you!