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Red Sox manager Torey Lovullo meets President Obama at hotel gym

Mark Townsend
·Yahoo Sports Contributor

The leader of the free world and the skipper of the Boston Red Sox came together for a meeting of the minds Tuesday in New York.

Well, OK, maybe it wasn't quite that serious. As it turns out, President Barack Obama was staying at the same hotel as the Red Sox during their trip to New York, and Boston's interim manager Torey Lovullo just so happened to run into Obama at the hotel gym.

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According to NESN, that's not exactly the whole story either.

The Boston Red Sox found out Monday that they were staying at the same hotel in New York as President Barack Obama for their series against the Yankees. And now, Torey Lovullo’s wish has come true. The Red Sox’s interim manager said Monday that the president was spotted in the hotel’s gym but that he’d just missed him. Lovullo said he’d start his morning workout earlier Tuesday, per ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes, and apparently, it worked.

A little bit sneaky, but credit Lovullo for his attention to detail.

The meeting was worthwhile to Lovullo as well. In fact, he made sounds like the thrill of a lifetime.

“It was almost unbelievable,” Lovullo said before Tuesday’s game, per the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato. “I walked into the same place that he was, and we were both civilians. He had the same workout clothes that I did, he just had 15 security guards that were watching his workout. It was a big difference. I took the advice of my stepson and just walked up to him freely and said, ‘Mr. President, nice to meet you, my name is Torey Lovullo. I’m one of the Red Sox coaches,’ anticipating that he would have said, ‘Hey, we had you guys in here (at the White House) a couple of years ago,’ but nothing."

A humble intro considering his current status. Though that's obviously more a show of respect to his friend John Farrell, whom he took over for after his cancer diagnosis in August.

As for what was on Obama's mind? Another pair of Sox, of course.

“He wanted to talk about the (Chicago) White Sox, he wanted to talk about how our season was going. He’s fairly dialed in to what’s happening in Major League Baseball, and we had a great conversation.”

Obviously, opinions about President Obama are driven almost entirely by political viewpoints. But if we can put those aside for one moment, let's do so just to appreciate and acknowledge his baseball fandom and his undying loyalty to those White Sox.

This president is no bandwagon jumper. He makes that clear every time he attends a sporting event and every time he welcomes a team to the White House.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!