He was a moderate Republican when he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, and is now considered the most liberal member of the Supreme Court, but Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has other interests besides the law and politics.

Namely Baseball.

More specifically; Cubs baseball.

Judge Stevens was born in Chicago in 1920. His father built the famous Stevens Hotel (which is now the Hilton), and John and his brothers posed as models for the bronze sculptures by the grand stairway.

In 1932 at the age of 12, Stevens, who had become a huge Chicago Cubs fan, remembers sitting at Wrigley Field and watching Babe Ruth, in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, gesturing with his bat toward center field and hitting his famous “called shot” home run. (Photo: The scorecard from the game hangs in Stevens’s chambers.)

He lived in Chicago all the way through college, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Chicago in 1941. During those years, he was a frequent visitor to Wrigley Field.

He got a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge and moved to Washington. But when his clerkship ended, he headed right back to his hometown and practiced law here.

In 1969, during the Cubs magical year, Stevens made a national name for himself when he was named the independent prosecutor challenged with investigating whether or not two of the justices on the Illinois Supreme Court were corrupt. His investigation determined that they were, and both men resigned.

During the 1950s and 1960s while he practiced law in Chicago, he continued to follow his favorite team. Starting in 1975, however, after becoming a Supreme Court Justice, his visits to Chicago became less frequent. He and his wife now live in Washington & Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

But every now and then, he'll still stop by the favorite place of his youth. In 2005, at age 85, he threw the first pitch at a Cubs-Reds game at Wrigley Field and got it right over the plate.