Major League Baseball
The Washington
Senators
Residents of Greenbelt lived in close proximity to major league baseball
with the Washington Senators of the American League playing in nearby
Griffith Stadium. Unfortunately, as major league baseball goes, the
Senators were about as bad as it gets. Greenbelt residents missed the
boat by about four years, because the Senators played in the World Series
in 1933. For the Senators this was not you average occurence. In fact,
it was the third and last time that a team from Washington would compete
in the World Series.(7) After 1933, the
team's record sank and so did the
attendance. By the end of the thirties the Senators were drawing the
fewest fans of any team in the American League. There was an average of
around 10-12,000 fans filling Griffith Stadium between 1937 and the end of
World War II.(7)
Griffith
Stadium
Another factor which hurt the attendance of the Senators was the actual
physical size of the ballpark. It had some of the farthest outfield
fences in the league, which made for fewer home runs. It is no secret
that most fans would consider the home run the most exciting play in
baseball, and Griffith Stadium made them scarce at best. The park itself
was located in Northwest Washington, between 5th Street and Georgia
Avenue.
Griffith Stadium was easily accessible by bus or car, and was within
walking distance of train as well.
Between 1937 and 1945, the Washington Senators never finished higher than
sixth place in an eight team league.(7) The
New York Yankees' dynasty over
the American League was in full swing at the time, with only Boston and
Cleveland proving to be any real challenge. For a time when the war
started it looked as though major league baseball might be put on hold for
a while, but President Franklin Roosevelt felt that baseball would be good
for the nation so he kept it going during the wartime, as a distraction
for the American public on the homefront. Nevertheless, many major league
baseball players enlisted or were drafted into the army. Thus many clubs
were forced to fill their rosters with older or very young players. Even
in this era of talent depletion the Senators could not capitalize on the
other teams' relative weakness. A team like the St. Louis Browns, nearly
has poor as the Senators, were able to get into their only World Series in
1944, but the Senators could not manage to do the same. Soon, in
1954, those Browns would move to Baltimore and become the Orioles, and the
Senators would have direct competition nearby.
Thus, for most fans of the Senators, there was really not much expected
and not much given. Area fans accepted the fact that the Senators were
not the best team in the land, and the loved them anyway. What fans the
Senators did have were some of the most die hard in the game, as one can
imagine. Residents would complain and debate for hours about just how bad
they truly were, but rooting for any other team was unthinkable.
Back to Baseball In Greenbelt