Table of Content

  • June 8, 2010: Was Strasburg’s debut the greatest ever?

    In its first issue of 2024, the venerable Baseball Digest chose Stephen Strasburg’s 2010 debut, at Nationals Park against Pittsburgh, as the greatest first-game performance in MLB history. Clearly, because of the hype surrounding Strasburg’s selection as the first player chosen in the 2009 draft, and his short but dominant two stops in the minors,… Read more

  • Who moved the Senators?

    Two men, one an heir and the other an unscrupulous financier, were responsible for Washington losing its two American League baseball teams, 11 years apart. The first was Calvin Griffith. He did what his uncle, Clark Griffith, never considered: moving the original Washington A.L. team to Minnesota. The District then was stuck with an expansion… Read more

  • April 30, 2017: Rendon’s 10-RBI, 3-homer, game

    Anthony Rendon began the afternoon of April 30, 2017, with five runs batted in for the month and had yet to homer in 22 games. He was hitting .226. To call it a slow start would be an understatement for the Nationals’ third baseman, who already had a Silver-Slugger season for Washington in 2014. Noah… Read more

  • Moe Berg: second-string catcher, first-rate spy

    Moe Berg was the backup catcher on the 1933 pennant-winning Senators and played most of three seasons with Washington. He gained greater glory by helping the U.S. intelligence service when he took a movie camera with him as part of a group of American major leaguers touring Japan in the fall of 1934. Berg had… Read more

  • Darold Knowles: all-star closer for the expansion Nats

    Lefty Darold Knowles holds a record that can’t be broken, having appeared in all seven games of the 1973 World Series with the Athletics, but his best years came as the premier reliever for the expansion Senators from 1967 to 1970. Knowles was acquired from the Phillies on November 30, 1966, for fading outfielder Don… Read more

  • King Charles was introduced to baseball at RFK

    Britain’s King Charles III turned 75 in November 2023, after waiting nearly 74 of those years to take the throne.  He and I have a couple of things in common. We each saw the Washington Senators play at D.C.’s Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, and we were born days apart on the same island nation.… Read more