The site of so many wonderful baseball and football memories, Griffith Stadium, had its life ended by the brutal swings of a wrecking ball in 1965. The hapless doormat of the American League, the Washington Senators stopped playing in there after the 1961 season, after which, the days were numbered.
Did you know the Washington Senators almost moved to Los Angeles in 1957? This amazing and true story would have changed the outlook of baseball on both coasts.
For those of you who watched the Nationals last night close out a huge win on the road in Houston, we’ve waited a long time for this. Sure, it’s not the Cubs or Red Sox and we’ve “only” had this team since 2005. And frankly, the city has waited an incredibly long time for a […]
A herdic cab is a type of horse-drawn carriage, used as an omnibus, invented by Peter Herdic of Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in 1881.
This fascinating old photograph shows the Washington Nationals playing at Swampoodle Grounds in the 1880s. Click on it for some amazing details. Source: Architect of the Capitol
The baseball nuts in the crowd are going to find this fascinating. Griffith Stadium off of Florida Ave. NW was where the old Washington Senators used to play baseball, and they were decent in the 1920s, but by the time the team was to move to Minnesota in the 1960s, they were pretty horrible. “First […]
These are so cool. We found them on Twitter by one of our favorite tweeters, @MLBcathedrals. These photos are from 1956 during the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
No way. How did we miss this. A great article by Tom Boswell (who is the best) uncovers the fact that our current Washington Nationals manager, Matt Williams, is the grandson of Bert (Buck) Griffith, a member of the only team from Washington to win the World Series. Below is a short excerpt from the […]
We found an interesting article about one of our Washington heros, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, Walter Johnson. We’ve written quite a number of pieces about his baseball exploits over the years, as well as an interesting piece about his wedding in Columbia Heights, and the sad tale of his wife’s death. This piece […]
What an amazing old baseball find here. This is a scorecard marked up for a game on August 18th, 1886. Also, check out the great advertisements around the scorecard. The Nats, by the way, finished 28-92 that season, good for eighth place our of eight in the National League. Oddly enough, the game ended in […]
The Washington Senators were in the World Series in 1924, and ultimately would come away victorious. What you might not know is that Grace Coolidge (she also spent some time in Columbia Heights) was a huge baseball fan. Her husband, not so much. But she had plans to change that, at least for a night […]
Every once in a while, I get an email from someone who has an amazing attachment to the historic fabric of Washington. Not too long ago, I received one of those emails from Phil Hochberg. Above is the photo he sent from his time with the Washington Senators. Phil was once the voice of the […]
GoDCer Rych sent in a couple great photos which piqued our interest in the fire that destroyed our old ballpark. No, not Griffith Stadium (where was the stadium and what did it look like like?), but the one before that. The year was 1911 and the Washington Nationals (aka, Senators) were coming off a sad seventh […]
Walter Johnson is one of the greatest pitchers of all time, and on May 15, 1918, he delivered a performance that stood out from any of his other games. He pitched a total of 18 innings in one game – and won! The game took place at Griffith Stadium against the defending World Series champion […]
We found this great composite of photos summarizing the opening game for the Washington Senators against the New York Yankees at Griffith Stadium, on April 22, 1925 – 89 years ago last week! This was the first home game following the team’s World Series championship the year before over the New York Giants. The 1925 […]
Ulysses Grant was arrested for speeding by William West, an African-American metropolitan policeman. This is a great historical story.
Even though the Washington Post had a new owner, things were tough financially for the paper in the depth of the Depression in 1933, the last year Washington had a baseball team in the World Series. The Post, formerly owned by Edward (Ned) McLean, had just been sold at a bankruptcy auction to Eugene Meyer. […]
This is a colorful story for the lost neighborhood of Swampoodle. We came across the article in The Washington Post, printed on October 20th, 1879. Morris Connors, a notorious Swampoodle thief and rough, tumbled out of a restaurant on G near North Capitol street at 9 o’clock yesterday morning in an outrageous condition from the effects […]
Happened to catch that Vince Lombardi special the other day on HBO. They always manage to show it in the run-up to the Super Bowl. It brought home again the total shock of learning shortly before the 1970 season that Lombardi had colon cancer and had only a few weeks to live. He died Sept. […]
Here’s a cool find from YouTube. The Senators lost the World Series to the Pirates, after having won the year before. Can you tell Ghosts of DC is getting excited for the 2014 baseball season?
