When Andrew Stevenson’s fly ball got past the Mets left fielder in the first game of the Sept. 26, 2020, double-header, the result was an inside-the-park home run, the least common hit in modern baseball. What made Stevenson’s race around the bases even more unusual was what had happened in his previous at-bat: He had … Continue reading Stevenson’s outside- and inside-the-park homers →

Sept. 3, 2020: After it happened for the first time ever in 1961 and then again in 1963 and 1964, no team would hit four consecutive home runs for another 42 years. Then in 2006, the Dodgers began what has become part of an overall homer barrage that has included back-to-back-to-back-to-back clouts six times. Until … Continue reading Four homers in a row? The Nats have done it twice →

Aug. 13, 2020: Two days after Juan Soto hit a 463-foot homer to dead center at New York's Citi Field, the Nationals young slugger topped that with 466-foot blast to right against the Mets, one of two he hit in an 11-6 loss on Aug. 12. Soto's blast, the third longest hit at Citi Field … Continue reading Soto’s Citi Field blasts and a look at long homers →

July 1, 2020: Home Run Derby, which I watched in reruns in the early 1960s, was a syndicated TV show originally broadcast from January to July in 1960, with half-hour segments filmed in 1959 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The show gave MLB's top slugger's three outs each for nine innings to see which … Continue reading TV’s ‘Home Run Derby’ was heavy on the Senators →

June 13, 2020 (updated, Dec. 22, 2020): The 2019 World Series victory was the triumphant culmination of the Nationals’ 15th season since Major League Baseball returned to the Nation’s Capital in 2005. In eight of those full seasons, all of them in a row since 2012, the Nats finished with a winning record, but it … Continue reading 15 years in, here’s where the Nationals stood →

June 5, 2020: The Yankees were expecting a huge crowd at the Polo Grounds on May 11, 1919, for the first American League game to be played on a Sunday in New York. After all, the Giants had played to a full house in the same stadium the week before for the first Sunday game … Continue reading May 11, 1919: The Big Train’s 12-inning, 2-hit, shutout ends in a tie →

June 1, 2020: The Washington Nationals had seen their 2005 season go south after a 50-31 start kept them in first place in the N.L. East as late as July 25. About to send John Halama, a reclamation project, to face 23-year-old Dontrelle Willis on the Wednesday night after Labor Day, the Nats were five … Continue reading Sept. 7, 2005: Zim’s first start turns into a milestone for Dontrelle Willis →

May 9, 2020 (revised Jan. 29, 2021): The Covid-19 pandemic caused the 2020 season to be reduced to 60 games, the first time since the labor contract turmoil of 1994 and 1995 that fewer than 162 games have been played. Prior to that, the 1981 season was cut short by a player strike, and teams … Continue reading The effect of playing time lost to crises →

May 1, 2020: Getting caught stealing forever links Ray Morgan to Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore. Getting out of jail—a month into a year’s sentence—when Clark Griffith showed up in court with a scouting job offer—is another reason Morgan has a place in the game’s lore. Morgan played second base for the Washington Senators in … Continue reading Ray Morgan, Nats’ Deadball-era second baseman →