In Part I of Baseball in the Nation's Capital, I claimed that Washington, DC and baseball have an awkward relationship. I also said that, despite it's awkwardness, baseball has a positive presence in DC culture and I attempted to prove it by listing the many baseball-themed activities that take place regularly in the area. However, as some readers pointed out, even those local baseball events are a little awkward... Fans gathering in an MLB outfield to watch an opera simulcast on the main scoreboard? U.S. Congressmen and women putting on game-day uniforms and trying to strike each other out in a major league stadium? A high school named after a pitcher? So why does a city that lives and dies by its football team, and that sticks by its basketball and hockey teams through good and bad seasons, have such a strange relationship with the national pastime?
I would argue it's because the city is disconnected from its baseball history. Before the Montreal Expos moved to DC in 2005, Washington was without a team for 34 years. A generation of would-be fans passed through their formative years without a home team to cheer for. True enthusiasts of the sport turned to Baltimore to get their fix, while others re-focused their energy on football and the Redskins. More significantly, there were no MLB team blankets for parents to swaddle their babies in, no games to which they could take their small children, and no late-game home run heroics to discuss over dinner with their budding teenagers. With the lineage broken, the city lost more than a baseball team... it lost its memory of ever having one.
Walter Johnson, who played for the American League Washington Nationals back in the early 20th Century, is considered by many to be the best pitcher of all time. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame, a year BEFORE the more well-known Cy Young, as part of the inaugural class which also included Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. How many current Nationals' fans or DC residents know that Walter Johnson's grave is located in a nearby suburb? How many even know who Walter Johnson is? How many know that the most famous Negro Leagues slugger of all time, Josh Gibson, hit for the Homestead Grays during a decade when the team played half of its home games at DC's Griffith Stadium? I'm not trying to insult Washington baseball fans or imply they are ignorant of the past. I don't think that at all. Nor do I think this knowledge is necessary for someone to be a good fan in present day. But there is definitely a disconnect. So please indulge me as I offer a quick history lesson.Being a baseball team, or a baseball fan, in DC has never been easy. The original ball club known as the Washington Nationals (at first named the Senators) was one of the eight inaugural teams in the American League when it was founded in 1901. Although they had some good years in the 1910s and '20s, culminating in 1924 as World Series champions, the team was mostly known for their lengthy struggles. The Nationals shared Griffith Stadium with multiple Negro Leagues teams, most notably the Grays, until re-integration caused "black baseball" to collapse in the late 1940s. In 1960, having earned a winning record in only FOUR of their previous 25 seasons, the Nationals (now called the Senators... again) were sold and relocated to Minneapolis to become the Twins.
DC was granted an expansion team (still called the Senators) the following season, but on September 21 of the same year, the city's treasured Griffith Stadium closed its doors for good. The Senators played the rest of their home games at [what's now called] RFK Stadium. The new park meant a move from a true baseball edifice to a generic, multi-use facility. The city had already started to phase-out the sport, even if it hadn't realized it yet. Frank Howard was the most accomplished player on the new team, causing some in present day to remark that he was the last good senator to serve in Washington. The team stayed in the area through 1971, but was never able to build much of a fan base. Not even a managerial stint by Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams could save the franchise. During their 11-year run, they lost 92 games OR MORE an astounding EIGHT times! To make matters worse, the Baltimore Orioles were in their heyday, making the Senators even more invisible. When they left DC to become the Texas Rangers, the nation's capital was without the nation's game - and would stay that way for 34 years.
When DC inherited a team-in-crisis from Montreal in 2005, there was some initial buzz as the ball club (now back to being called the Nationals) won 50 of their first 81 games. The buzz died quickly, however, when the winning stopped. Over the next 5 1/2 seasons, the "Nats" struggled to accumulate a win-loss record of 326-528. They attracted a fair number of locals who had been waiting for the city to re-acquire an MLB team, but did little to win over the thousands of transplants who came to the stadium nightly to cheer for the AWAY team. In 2010 (their third year in a brand new just-for-baseball stadium), the team hoped heralded prospect Stephen Strasburg would be their savior. But after a miraculous MLB debut plus 11 more exciting starts, an elbow injury sidelined him for the rest of the year - and limited his 2011 to just 5 appearances. In 2012, the Nationals finally captured the city's heart with a break-out season that saw them claim the best record in the major leagues. Unfortunately, a heart-breaking loss in the Divisional Series, plus a failure to return to the play-offs the following season, reversed much of the hard-earned progress they had made with the city. That brings us to 2014 and the lingering awkwardness. 25 mostly losing seasons, followed by 11 mostly HORRIBLE seasons, followed by 34 years without baseball (after losing two teams to relocation) equals 70 years of bad baseball karma the current team must contend with. To make matters harder, in a city full of transplants with hometown loyalties - not to mention the tens of thousands of Orioles fans living just outside the District in the Maryland suburbs - the Nats are forced to compete for fans on their own turf.
Yet the situation is improving. The city has a team. People have started to notice them. Small children are growing up Nats fans. They talk about late-game home run heroics with their parents over dinner. The city is still disconnected with its baseball history, but it's making new history. It's forging new legends. There's an expression that baseball fans are all too familiar with: "Maybe next year". We say it when our team has a bad season, or ten bad seasons, or twenty. Perhaps people can say it about the relationship between DC and baseball after 70 years of awkwardness. Maybe there is hope that the nation's capital can become a true baseball city. Photos by Danial Orange: 1. a picture of Josh Gibson displayed at Howard University Hospital; 2. Walter Johnson's grave in Rockville, Maryland; 3.the scoreboard at Nationals Park on the night of Stephen Strasbug's MLB debut; 5. various periodicals spread out over my dining room table.
