Table of Content

  • Books about Washington baseball

    October 25, 2017 (last updated  December 2025): These are books I’d recommend about the history of baseball in Washington: The Washington Senators by Morris A. Bealle (1947, Columbia Publishing Company), long out of print, subtitled “An 87-year History of the World’s Oldest Baseball Club and Most Incurable Fandom.’’  The Washington Senators by Shirley Povich (1954,… Read more

  • Ninth and Tenth Place

    October 25, 2017: In the 1960s, teams had a dubious opportunity that hadn’t been afforded since the 19th century: a chance to finish 9th or 10th. From 1961 to ’68 in A.L. and ’62 to ’68 in the N.L., the leagues had 10 teams each with no divisions, which produced 30 chances to finish where… Read more

  • ‘Boom Boom’ Beck and Camilo Pascual

    October 24, 2017: Walter “Boom Boom” Beck was the Senators’ pitching coach from 1957 through 1959. He was hired in the fall of 1956 by Chuck Dressen, the Nats’ manager at the time and, like Beck, a native of Decatur, Ill. When Cookie Lavagetto replaced Dressen early in 1957, Boom Boom stayed on. Beck helped… Read more

  • Griffith Stadium: graveyard for would-be home runs

    May 15, 2016: Most of those familiar with baseball history know that cavernous Griffith Stadium, home of the original Washington American League team from its opening until 1960 and to the expansion Senators in 1961, was a difficult place to hit a ball out of the park. That was especially true before Calvin Griffith moved… Read more

  • Bennie Daniels’ places in baseball history

    January 10, 2017: The 1961 Washington Senators were assembled in a hurry after Calvin Griffith took his established team to the Twin Cities. Two days after the expansion draft in December 1960, the new Senators acquired a pitcher named Bennie Daniels along with two other players from Pittsburgh in exchange for the aging Bobby Shantz.… Read more

  • Jim King, the last original expansion Nat

    April 19, 2017: Jim King started in left field for the San Francisco Giants in the first Major League game ever played in California. His best seasons, however, came after he was selected by the expansion Washington Senators, with whom he remained for six and half years, longer than any of the other 27 players… Read more