Fast Break

Baseball

That guy looks familiar

First fan George W. Bush turned out Thursday night to catch the last-place Washington Nationals play the Chicago Cubs.

It was an early birthday outing for Bush, who turns 61 today. He arrived at RFK Stadium in the bottom of the first inning and left after the seventh-inning stretch with the Cubs leading 4-2.

Most fans probably did not know Bush was present. There was no advance word of his visit and no announcement over the stadium public-address system.

The president sat in a team box above the field on the third-base side, where he was joined by Mark Lerner, whose family owns the Nats, along with Stan Kasten, the team president, and Jim Bowden, the vice president and general manager.

Bush, a former part-owner of the Texas Rangers, has attended three other Nationals games at RFK since major league baseball returned to Washington in 2005.

Baseball

Bonds will skip Home Run Derby

Barry Bonds will sit out of the Home Run Derby on Monday night, opting to rest his tired body before Tuesday night’s All-Star game.

“Nope,” Bonds said when asked about the Derby. “Especially when you’re 42. It’s not that you don’t want to, it’s that you just can’t anymore. You can’t. It’s too long. Too much waiting. Too much sitting around. You can’t do that.”

Bonds turns 43 on July 24.

Bonds is slated to start in left field for the National League in the All-Star game in San Francisco.He has appeared in six home run contests, winning in 1996.