Major League Baseball and Washington, DC have had a rocky relationship in the past. That changed with the emergence of the Washington Nationals.
In 2005, the national pastime returned to the nation’s capital when the Washington Nationals returned to the field.
Major League Baseball and the City of Washington have carried a checkered history. The Nats are the fourth MLB team to call the city home since 1876. Two owners cashed out of Washington in search of greener pastures. Several rounds of expansion came and went without a serious bid to return baseball to DC.
As the National Football League exploded in personality, the Washington Redskins became a powerhouse. Between the time when the expansion Senators left for Dallas/Fort Worth and baseball returned, the Redskins won four National Football Conference championships and three Super Bowls.
Every time Joe Gibbs held up the Vince Lombardi Trophy to a television camera, baseball fell further off the radar of people’s minds and hearts. With no serious expansion effort, a return to MLB seemed unlikely.
Enter the Montreal Expos.
When MLB ran the ballclub, they knew they needed to leave Quebec and find a new home. Against stiff competition from around the country, the powers that be settled with Washington and now enjoy incredible success.
This is the story of Washington’s MLB past, how it became the city that baseball forgot and how in this golden age of pro football how the Washington Nationals are on the verge of owning a new generation of fans who call southern Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia home.
Although the National League and others tried four times in the 1880s and 90s to establish a team in DC, it took the rebel American League and founder Ban Johnson to give the city a long-term franchise.
Started in 1901 as an original member, the team floundered from the start. In 1904, the team went 38-113. Twice more that decade, the Nationals dropped over 100 games. Not until the arrival of Walter Johnson at the end of the decade did the team compete. Second place finishes in 1912 and 1913 put the team on the map.
In war-shortened 1918, they finished four games behind the Boston Red Sox, their closest finish yet, for the AL flag. Finally, in 1924, they captured the pennant, delivering their only World Series championship to the city. A tense seven-game affair against the New York Giants. A repeat followed in 1925, but this time the Nats fell on the wrong side of a Game 7, this time to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Giants exacted revenge in 1933, knocking out the Nats in five. When they scored the winning run in the tenth on October 7, 1933, that marked the last World Series game played in Washington.
The Nats contended twice in the war years, coming within 1.5 games of the Detroit Tigers in 1945. That was the last time the Nats or Senators finished within 10 games of first.
By the mid-1950s, teams started an exodus west. The Boston Braves headed for Milwaukee. Philadelphia’s Athletics shipped off to Kansas City and the downtrodden St. Louis Browns moved east to Baltimore. By the time the Brooklyn Dodgers and Giants shifted to California, the Senators days in DC were numbered.
The Griffith family, owners of the team and stadium, first flirted with San Francisco. Opposition to the move, and eventually the Giants, killed it. With minor league rights to Minneapolis, they tried again. About to be rebuffed, a new third major league threatened to put teams in New York and Minneapolis, for starters.
This time, the Senators could go. Inner city teams and stadiums were no longer seen as money makers or safe. As Washington earned an expansion team for 1961, the Sens became the Minnesota Twins.
Born as an appeasement to the federal government, the expansion Washington Senators were a disaster from the start.
With ownership groups on the verge of bankruptcy annually and a team that floundered on the field, the new Senators were as the old—first in war, first in peace and last in the American League.
Only once, in 1969, did the club have a winning season. New manager Ted Williams tried to change the culture and outlook of the club and won 86 his first year. He never topped 70 after.
With three ownership groups in ten years, the team found no financial footing. Never topping one million in attendance, they bombed at the gate. The combination killed whatever momentum the franchise could develop. When new owner Bob Short could not find a buyer at his $12 million asking price, he told the city he would not renew their 10-year lease and move the team.
How a new stadium could open with only a 10-year lease is beyond bizarre. Short had his out and an interest in Dallas/Fort Worth.
As the team became the Texas Rangers, unless baseball fans watched whatever NBC showed on Saturday afternoons or the few Baltimore Oriole games on television, there was no more MLB in DC.
Given a National League expansion franchise for the 1969 season, the national pastime became international with the Montreal Expos.
Playing at intimate Jarry Parc, the Expos captured the hearts and minds of the country. A big baseball town during their minor-league years, Montreal entered MLB with a wealth of knowledgeable and caring fans.
In 1977, the team moved into the brand new 60,000 Olympic Stadium. Success followed in the late 1970s on the field. Close calls in 1979 and 1980 led to their first and only playoff berth in 1981. After beating the Philadelphia Phillies in the first National League Divisional Series, the Expos forced the Los Angeles Dodgers to a decisive Game 5 of the NL Championship Series.
A best-of-five affair then, Rick Monday’s homer in the ninth beat Montreal. The team never recovered.
A contender for most of the 1980s, the team never returned to the playoffs. In time, the big stadium turned into a white elephant, costing millions in public money with a failed roof and dwindling attendance.
With a series of penny pinching owners, a Canadian Dollar unstable, threats of Quebec leaving Canada and other factors that could be a book onto itself, the Expos fell into disrepair. Before the strike of 1994 cancelled the postseason, Montreal was on the verge of a division title and the best record in baseball.
The strike killed interest in the Expos. A plan for a baseball-only stadium downtown never got beyond the talking stage. Attendance, never great to begin with, plummeted. Games were no longer carried on the radio in English or on television in any language.
The long road to failure, started when Olympic Stadium opened, came to a head around the turn of the century. MLB tried to contract two teams in 2001—the Minnesota Twins thought to be the other team—with Montreal on the list. The Players Association said no and the Expos barely survived.
Another ownership group failed, headed by Jeffrey Loria, and MLB took over the running of the club.
By 2004, Montreal shared home games with San Juan, PR. The team was doomed.
On April 14, 2005, in front of over 45,000 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, Craig Counsell dug in for the Arizona Diamondbacks against Livan Hernandez and struck out looking.
It was their tenth game of the year, but the new Washington Nationals were finally home.
A search of sites from Portland, Oregon to San Juan happened throughout the 2004 season. Groups in Northern Virginia wanted to land the Expos, but Washington had an MLB-ready stadium ready to go with RFK. Once the deal came together for land near the Anacostia River for a new home by the Navy Yard, Washington had a team.
For 33 years, there was no baseball. Now, a crumbling team called an old place home. That first year, the vagabond Expos—now Nationals—contended for the NL East title. With Frank Robinson as manager, the team stumbled down the stretch, but finished above .500.
Home opened for the 2008 season, a mix of classic and modern architecture, called Nationals Park. When MLB sold the club to the Lerner family, the team had stability not realized for a generation.
After 72 seasons of American League baseball, Washington became an NL town. New rivalries formed with the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets. With interleague play, those Orioles call every year.
It is a different game now.
Washington Nationals /
SUCCESS AT LAST
Washington and the Nationals are like two old lovers who lost track of each other until after the kids left.
To say the Nats are anything but a success is silly. Three trips to the playoffs came on solid drafts, shrewd trades and the reality of needing to build a winner.
Sure, you can quibble about October’s, but the Nats have made the postseason the same number of times in five years they did in 71 before. Even if the Expos could play in the 1994 postseason, the Nats are more successful than those Montreal teams.
Nationals Park is unique, with great views and seats, something the old teams of the past never had. The talent is a mix of homegrown and free agents. The Lerner’s are not afraid to spend money.
Given the unheard of third chance to prove themselves a baseball market, Washington has done its part. Over two million file into the stadium annually. Television ratings—on the low end—are rising every year.
As the Nats finish their first generation in their new home, finally they are now Washington’s own. No longer the scorned team of 20 years ago, a new group of fans embrace the team and the sport.
