Scene from Damn Yankees
Fidel
Castro,
Former Senators pitching prospect ,seen with
president of the Baltimore Orioles and the Commissioner of
Baseball.
.
NEW: "Mr. 3000", Almost,the true story of a Senator who was 13 hits shy..at www.washingtonnationals.us
Now you will hear the tale of the Washington Senators.
The Washington Senators win or lose . . . how they played the game!The team was known variously as the Senators,the Nationals, and the Griffs or Griffmen, in honor of long-time owner-manager Clark Giffith. The press, however, preferred the sobriquet Nats. It provided a short, snarling headline, as in
NATS LOSE AGAIN
But the team by any name would have been as hapless.The Washington ballclubwas Keystone Kops comedy and vaudevillian melodrama rolled into one.
Through their lengthy history . . .
They lost a season pennant in the sun because an outfielder left histrademark sunglasses in the dugout
in a season opener a third-baseman knocked down his own pitcher witha throw toward first..
A shortstop threw wild over first base and killed a fan in the standsduring one season
the team's best hitter mysteriously disappeared over Niagara Falls,his body found days later in the waters below
They boasted Walter Johnson,arguably the best pitcher the game has seen and Al Schacht, the self-proclaimedclown prince of baseball.
They were a team known less for what they did than for what was doneto them.
They were not merely good losers, they were perfect.
Fans of opposing teams often cheered the Senators toward victory. Afterall, what was not to like?
In all their years in the American League, they won only three penantsand only one World Series championship.
And that came in the bottom of the 12th inning of the 7th gameof a hard-fought Series won with the help of Walter Johnson, an errantthird-base pebble and a lot of prayers.
From the beginning of the American League the team tookon the reputation of cellar-dwellers because in the first ten years, theWashington franchise finished in the bottom berth four times.
This inspired Charley Dryden, sports editor of the SanFrancisco Chronicle, to write: Washington--firstin war, first in peace, last in the American League.
The line was parroted by vaudeville and burlesque comics,and then by baseball fans across the country. Consequently, no story aboutWashington baseball would be considered complete without the inclusionof this zinger. Never mind that after 1910, the Washington club would seldomend up in the basement. The Washington Senators -- win or lose, how theyplayed the game!
BY VANCE GARNETT
.
New
(2009):
|
(slow day)
 |
.
The Washington Monument (Frank Howard) at age 68 (Washington P0ST 2005)
Washington Senators Baseball Fan Page (unaffiliated with MLB..Nuf Said...)
 |
Griffith Stadium