Table of Content

  • Elmer Valo, Senators’ record-setting pinch-hitter

    November 21, 2017: On May 23, 1960, the Yankees released 39-year-old Elmer Valo, a 20-year major league veteran who had been carving a niche as a pinch-hitter and part-time outfielder in the late 1950s. He was signed the next day by the Washington Senators, who immediately anointed the left-hand hitter as the team’s go-to bat… Read more

  • Fact and fiction about Mantle’s ‘565-foot’ homer

    November 17, 2017: Mickey Mantle’s mammoth home run off  Senators’ lefty Chuck Stobbs at Griffith Stadium on April 17, 1953, is one of the most famous tape-measure blasts of all time. In fact, most sources credit this homer with creating the  “tape-measure’’ phrase, although obviously no tape measure was used to calculate the distance.  (Mantle… Read more

  • Nick Johnson, Sabermetric star

    November 7, 2017 (updated): First baseman Nick Johnson, who came to Washington with the Expos in 2005, was an on-base machine in his four seasons with the Nats. His on-base percentage was .418, the Nationals’ record until Juan Soto’s departure for San Diego at .427. (Bryce Harper’s, in comparison, stood at .388 when he left… Read more

  • Mickey Mantle and D.C.

    Nov. 6, 2017: On April 17, 1953, Mickey Mantle hit a home run off Washington lefty Chuck Stobbs that cleared the left-field stands at Griffith Stadium. The blast gave rise to the term “tape-measure homer,” largely because Mantle and Yankees publicist Red Patterson later posed for a photo with a prop designed to look like… Read more

  • Buck Freeman, the first true power hitter

    October 31, 2017: When Babe Ruth set a major league record with 29 home runs in 1919, his total topped what was recognized by many as the previous mark: the 25 home runs hit by baseball’s first real power hitter: Buck Freeman of the Washington Senators. Freeman hit his 25 round-trippers playing for the 11th-place… Read more

  • George Selkirk molded the expansion Nats

    October 29, 2017 (updated May 2020): George Selkirk became the expansion Senators second general manager on Nov. 21, 1962. He succeeded Ed Doherty, who had been fired at the end of the 1962 season by then Senators majority owner Elwood R. “Pete” Quesada. As a player, Selkirk, nicknamed “Twinkletoes” because of his running style, had… Read more