The old Washington Nationals stunk. So did the Senators. So what?
With Washington’s baseball team doing as well as it is — sitting at the top of the National League East— it can be hard to remember just how bad previous Nationals/Senators teams were. And how much fans loved them all the same.
I heard from many of those fans after a recent column on the names the teams have gone by over the decades. The team, they said, was woeful in the 1950s: 53 and 101 in 1955; 59 and 95 in 1956; 55 and 99 in 1957. The expansion Senators of the 1960s weren’t much better, with only one season — 1969 — above .500.
A reader named Chris had season tickets in 1967 and 1968 at RFK Stadium — then called D.C. Stadium. The seats were behind the third base dugout, providing her with a good view of third baseman Ken McMullen and her favorite player, short stop Eddie Brinkman.
"I got really good at estimating 'crowds' of 7,000 or fewer," Chris wrote. "The team was really bad, especially after they traded away the left side of the infield for Denny McLain!"
Not only was the team bad, Chris said, but the ticket prices were among the highest in the league.
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Back then, Washington’s tabloid newspaper — the Daily News — used to run a cartoon about the team. The name on the back of the players’ jerseys? “Gnats.” Not a lot of respect.
Roy Harrill has many fond memories of the team's previous home, Griffith Stadium. "My grandfather was in charge of the ushers at Griffith Stadium for 40 years so I attended just about every game from 1952 to 1959," wrote Roy, who also worked in the Nats' radio booth from 1956 to 1959. "Harmon Killebrew and I used to sit and chat in the clubhouse ante-room in 1954, because as a farm boy from Idaho he wasn't very comfortable going into the main clubhouse with all those 'old men' drinking beer, cursing, etc. I was much closer to his age than they were."
Killebrew was a rare high point for the Senators, and he was Bob Embrey's favorite player. The first ballgame Bob went to was in 1959 at Griffith Stadium, where he saw Killebrew and the Senators take on the Red Sox with Ted Williams.
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When Bob, of Manassas, Va., retired six years ago, he treated himself to two tattoos. One is a map of Vietnam, where he served in 1969. The other is the tricorn-hat-wearing Colonial figure who graced the Senators’ 1957 yearbook.
A few weeks ago, a cashier at a Meadows Farms nursery asked Bob about the tattoo with the hat. “I said Washington had a baseball team before the Nationals. The lady behind me in line shouted, ‘the Senators,’ and we both started smiling at each other. The young girl had no idea of the Senators.”
Before there was Harmon Killebrew there was Eddie Yost. He was the favorite player of Pat Yates of the District. Pat became a Nats fan soon after her family moved to Washington in 1948. By the time she was in the 11th grade at Eastern High, she was attending as many games as she could, scrounging 20 cents for a streetcar ride to Griffith Stadium and 60 cents for a bleacher-seat ticket.
Pat wrote: “I was terribly in love with Eddie Yost, the Senators’ third baseman, who was single, handsome and a college student.”
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After almost every game, Pat stood outside the dugout exits to snag autographs of the players as they left. In her book were the signatures of Phil Rizzuto, Luke Easter, Bob Feller, Joe DiMaggio, Connie Marrero, Larry Doby and Mickey Mantle.
And on every fourth page: Eddie Yost.
“I often wonder if the magnificent Eddie noticed me, an awkward teenaged girl with stringy hair,” Pat wrote. She even composed a poem in his honor. It went something like:
Eddie Yost
You’re the most
At your third base post.
In 1953, Pat’s family moved across town, and she transferred to McKinley High for 12th grade.
“Feeling grown up, I put aside baseball,” she wrote. “Next door to my family lived a 12-year-old boy, and to him I gave my dog-eared autograph books and the hundreds of baseball cards that I had amassed during my baseball years. It felt good at the time to put aside what I considered a childish thing, but oh how I have regretted it over the years.”
Being a baseball fan is a good way to exercise your emotions. Regret, sure, especially if you were a Senators fan — along with despair, rage and sadness. But also joy, especially when your team is winning.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
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