The Washington Nationals won the World Series last night, beating the Houston Astros 6-2 at Minute Maid Park in Houston. It was the 6th straight season in which the World Series was clinched by the visiting team, and the 1st ever in which all games were won by the visiting team -- made all the more amazing by the fact that it went the full 7 games.
The Nationals had been the Montreal Expos from 1969 to 2004. This, their 51st season, was their 1st to end with a Pennant, much less a World Series win. And it was the 1st World Series won by a baseball team representing the District of Columbia since October 10, 1924.
The 1924 World Series also went to a Game 7, played at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The New York Giants led the Washington Senators 3-1 in the bottom of the 8th, when Bucky Harris, the Senators' 2nd baseman and not-quite-28-year-old "boy manager" hit a grounder that struck a pebble in the infield dirt, and sailed over the head of Fred Lindstrom, the Giants' 18-year-old rookie 3rd baseman, who is still the youngest player ever to appear in a World Series game.
The hit tied the game, and Harris brought the great Walter Johnson in to pitch, having, to that point, pitched 18 seasons, won an American League record 377 games, tossed a record 104 shutouts, and struck out a record 3,281 batters. (He'd go on to win 417, pitch 113 shutouts, and fan 3,508. The strikeout record is no longer his, the others still are.) Johnson went 23-7 that season, at age 37, and had started and lost Games 1 and 5, with the whole country behind him.
In the bottom of the 12th inning, Giants catcher Hank Gowdy -- a star of Boston's 1914 "Miracle Braves" and the 1st ballplayer to enlist in World War I -- stepped on his own discarded mask while trying to catch a foul pop-up hit by the Senators' catcher, Muddy Ruel, and dropped the ball. Given a 2nd chance in the at-bat, Ruel doubled. Johnson reached 1st on another error.
The next batter was Earl McNeely, and he smacked a grounder that may have hit the same pebble as Harris' earlier hit. It sailed over the head of the hard-luck Lindstrom -- who did go on to have a Hall of Fame career -- and Ruel, a notoriously slow runner, had just enough gas in his tank to score the title-winning run.
For the 1st time, a team from the Nation's Capital had won a World Championship of baseball. The whole country celebrated -- except for Giant fans. You can bet that Brooklyn Dodger fans celebrated, and that Yankee Fans, though they had finished just 2 games behind, also did.
Outfielder George "Showboat" Fisher was the last survivor of the '24 Senators, living until 1994, age 95.
The Senators would make it back-to-back Pennants in 1925, but lost Game 7 of the Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won another Pennant in 1933, but lost the Series to the Giants. They never won another: The "old Senators" moved to become the Minnesota Twins in 1961, and a "new Senators" expansion franchise was established, only to move to become the Texas Rangers in 1972.
The Expos became the Nationals in 2005. It took them until 2012 to have a plus-.500 season, but, since then, they've only been plus-.500. They won the National League Eastern Division in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017, but lost the Division Series each time, the 1st (2012) in excruciating fashion. But, this year, they reached the NL Wild Card Game, beat the Milwaukee Brewers, outlasted the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 5-game NLDS, and swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS, before their odd road-team-won-every-game World Series win over the Astros.
So, after 1924, it took until last night for another Washington team to win a World Series. That's 95 years and 21 days. How long has that been?
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The Senators played in Griffith Stadium, a 27,000-seat ballpark named for their owner, Clark Griffith, who had been a Hall of Fame pitcher in his own right,from 1891 to 1914, including as pitcher and manager of the original Yankees (then known as the New York Highlanders) from 1903 to 1907. He bought the Senators in 1912, closed his playing career with them in 1914, managed them until 1920, and owned them until his death in 1955.
The new Senators would move to District of Columbia Stadium in 1962, and see its name changed to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969. The Nationals played at RFK until 2007, and the next season Nationals Park opened.
Monuments to Griffith and Johnson were placed outside Griffith Stadium. When it was torn down in 1965, and replaced with the Howard University Hospital, the Johnson monument was moved to a high school named for him nearby Rockville, Maryland, where he lived and was buried. The Griffith monument, and one to Washington Redskins founder-owner George Preston Marshall, were placed outside RFK.
A statue to Johnson now stands outside Nationals Park, alongside statues for Josh Gibson, who played home games at Griffith Stadium for the Negro Leagues' Homestead Grays, and Frank Howard, the slugger for the new Senators who hit the last home run for the team, and (along with then-President George W. Bush) threw out the ceremonial first ball before the 1st Nationals game.
In 1924, there were 16 major league teams in 10 cities: 3 in New York; 2 each in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and St. Louis; and 1 each in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Washington. There were no teams further west than St. Louis, and no teams further south than St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington.
Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago were the only major league ballparks in use then that are still in use now, and they were not considered all that special then. The Philadelphia Phillies were playing in Baker Bowl, which had opened in 1895.
There were a few white Hispanics playing in the major leagues, but no black players, Anglo or Latin, and no Asian players. There were no stadiums with lights, no electric scoreboards, no artificial turf, no domes, retractable or otherwise. It was still illegal to play sports in Pennsylvania on Sundays.
The NFL existed, but it was hardly a "major league" at this point. The only teams then in existence that survive are the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Bears, and the Chicago Cardinals (now in Arizona). The New York Giants were a year away from being established. The NHL was about to debut its 1st American team, the Boston Bruins; the other teams were the Montreal Canadiens, the Montreal Maroons, the Toronto St. Patricks (forerunners of the Maple Leafs), the Ottawa Senators (not the current team with the name), and the Hamilton Tigers. Professional basketball existed, but "major league" basketball did not.
Early baseball legends George Wright and Joe Start were still alive. So was Gentleman Jim Corbett, the 1st heavyweight boxing champion to use gloves. The defining players of my childhood weren't born yet. Nor were Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Sandy Koufax or Roberto Clemente. Dizzy Dean was 14 years old, Hank Greenberg was 13, Joe DiMaggio was about to turn 10, Ted Williams and Bob Feller were 6, Jackie Robinson 5, Stan Musial about to turn 4, Warren Spahn was 3.
The Senators took the title away from the Yankees, who were in their 2nd season at the original Yankee Stadium. The NFL Championship was won by the Cleveland Bulldogs, their 3rd straight, although they were the Canton Bulldogs for the 1st 2. The Canadiens had won the Stanley Cup earlier in the year. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Jack Dempsey.
The Olympics had just been held in Paris, and the 1st Winter Olympics had also been held in France, in Chamonix, in the Alps, in the southeastern part of the country, on the border with Switzerland and Italy. Since then, the Olympics have been held in America 7 times, Canada 3, Germany 3, Japan 3; twice each in Britain, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Norway and Korea; and once each in the Netherlands, Finland, Greece, Bosnia, Mexico, China and Brazil.
The World Cup soccer tournament had not yet been held for the 1st time. It has since been held in Italy twice, France twice, Brazil twice, Germany twice, Mexico twice, England, Spain, Uruguay, Sweden, Argentina, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Russia, and even once in America.
There were 48 States in the Union. Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma had been added in the last 17 years; Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota within the last 33. There were 19 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There was no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, no Civil Rights Acts, no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Environmental Protection Agency. Abortion? Gay Marriage? Hell, producing, possessing, transporting, selling, buying and consuming alcoholic beverages wasn't even legal.
The President of the United States was Calvin Coolidge, shown shaking hands with Walter Johnson in the photo above. Oddly, for a New Englander, he didn't like baseball. But his wife Grace did. (My grandmother, also named Grace, was born that year, and she loved baseball.) The First Lady convinced the President that the man of the office should be at World Series games played in the Nation's Capital, even as he was running for a full term of his own. (He had been Vice President when President Warren Harding had died a year earlier. Coolidge would win easily in November.) And, unlike Donald Trump, Coolidge did not get booed by the Washington fans.
William Howard Taft, his wife, and the widows of Harding, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland were still alive. Mrs. Harding would follow her husband into the tomb in a few days. Richard Norton Smith, a conservative historian who has run the Presidential Libraries of Presidents Hoover, Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan, has nonetheless called the conservative Republican Harding's Administration "the creepiest in the nation's history" for reasons I won't get into here, but I will say that he had a point -- until 2017, anyway.
The Governor of New York was Alfred E. Smith, currently smarting from having been denied the Democratic nomination for President due to the anti-Catholic influence of the Ku Klux Klan, which would never be so powerful again. (That fall from power would be good news for not just blacks, but also Catholics and Jews.) Smith then concentrated on his bid for re-election, and defeated Theodore Roosevelt Jr., in spite of the Coolidge landslide.
The Mayor of New York was John F. Hylan (for whom Staten Island's Hylan Blvd. is named). The Governor of New Jersey was George S. Silzer. Washington, D.C., the city in question, did not have an elected Mayor at that time; instead, it was run by a Board of Commissioners, whose president was Cuno Hugo Rudolph. That Board was chosen by Congress.
There were still living veterans of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the European Revolutions of 1848, and the Crimean War of 1854-57, including the storied Charge of the Light Brigade. There are those who believe that Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Billy the Kid survived their alleged Wild West deaths, but Wyatt Earp was definitely still alive.
The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded in 1924, or in 1923, so the current holder was still the 1922 winner, Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian scientist, a champion skier and skater, and an activist for refugees and hunger relief, which was definitely still an issue after World War I and the Russian Civil War. The Pope was Pius XI. Popes Francis and Benedict XVI weren't born yet. Pope John Paul II was 4 years old,
The Prime Minister of Canada was William Lyon Mackenzie King, and of Great Britain James Ramsay MacDonald, although his Liberal Party was about to be turned out of power by the voters, in favor (or, as it would be "spelt" there, "favour") of the Conservative Party, led by Stanley Baldwin. The monarch of both nations was King George V, and his granddaughter, current Queen Elizabeth II, hadn't been born yet. There have since been 16 Presidents of the United States, 4 British Monarchs, and 8 Popes.
Huddersfield Town, of Yorkshire, and managed by Herbert Chapman, won the Football League, while the FA Cup was won by Newcastle United. A year later, Chapman would be hired by North London team Arsenal, and turn them into champions and cup winners.
Television? In 1924? Forget it, it was still in the experimental stage. Even radio broadcasting, as we would come to know it, wasn't yet in full force. Westinghouse Broadcasting (forerunner of the later, now defunct, Group W), with Graham McNamee on the mike, broadcast the World Series, but there weren't all that many people with radio sets able to hear it. There were probably as many people as had TV sets in 1950.
There were no photocopiers. Air conditioning was hardly known. Computers? You've got to be kidding. Alan Turing was 12 years old. Less than half of all American homes had telephones. There were no credit cards or automatic teller machines.
Movies were silent. Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. were still major stars, the former taking nearly the entire year (unusual for any film in those days) to film The Gold Rush, the latter appearing in The Thief of Baghdad. Rudolph Valentino was the heartthrob of the age. Erich Von Stroheim premiered his 4-hour epic Greed, the 1st film to be released by the newly-conglomerated Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
There were pulp novels and comic strips, but not comic books, or the heroes thereof, super or otherwise, as we know them today. No one had yet heard of Charlie Chan, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, Miss Marple (although Hercule Poirot had been introduced), Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, Ellery Queen, Simon Templar, Sam Spade, The Shadow, Dick Tracy, the Lone Ranger, Doc Savage, Perry Mason, Nero Wolfe, the Green Hornet, the Phantom, or Philip Marlowe.
Nor had anyone yet heard of Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny or Casper the Friendly Ghost. Nor had anyone yet heard of Laurel & Hardy, Burns & Allen, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges or Abbott & Costello. There was no James Bond: Ian Fleming was at Eton College. There was no Star Trek: Gene Roddenberry was 3 years old.
It was a good year for music, although this was not fully realized at the time. George Gershwin debuted "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Fascinating Rhythm," Al Jolson "California, Here I Come," Ma Rainey "See See Rider," and Billy Rose "Does Your Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?" (Lonnie Donegan would turn it into "Does Your Chewing Gum... " in 1961.)
Harry Frazee -- nearly 5 years after the legend incorrectly says he sold Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees in order to finance it -- premiered his Broadway musical No, No, Nanette, featuring the song "Tea for Two." Louis Armstrong split from King Oliver's band and formed his Hot Five. Bing Crosby was on the baseball team at Gonzaga University in his native Spokane, Washington, and was singing with a local group called The Three Harmony Aces.
Elvis Presley wasn't born yet. Nor was Johnny Cash. Nor was Bob Dylan. Nor were any of the Beatles. Frank Sinatra was about to turn 9. Earl Scruggs, Slim Whitman, Sarah Vaughan, Henry Mancini, Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves, Dinah Washington, Roger Williams and Allan Sherman (the Weird Al Yankovic of the 1960s) were born that year. Of these, the last survivor was Earl Scruggs, who lived until 2012.
Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $14.93 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 2 cents, and a New York Subway ride 5 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 11 cents, a cup of coffee was 10 cents, so was a hamburger, a movie ticket was 25 cents, a new car $265, and a new house $7,720. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 101.38.
Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."
Artificial organs were not yet possible. Transplantation of organs was not possible. The distribution of antibiotics was not possible: If you got any kind of infection, you could easily die. There was no polio vaccine. In spite of the fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, no one had yet launched a rocket toward space. There was no birth-control pill, and no Viagra.
In the Autumn of 1924, Josef Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, following the death early in the year of Vladimir Lenin. Adolf Hitler was about to be released from Landsberg Prison, where he served 8 months for his activities in the Beer Hall Putsch. France ended its postwar occupation of Germany. The Kohat Riots broke out in India.
U.S. Army pilots John Harding and Erik Nelson completed the 1st aerial circumnavigation, taking 175 days and making 74 stops, starting and ending their around-the-world flight in Seattle. And Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected Governor of Wyoming, the 1st woman elected Governor of any State. (Fitting, because Wyoming was the 1st State to grant women the right to vote.)
Giacomo Puccini, and Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Frank Chance died. Jimmy Carter, and Truman Capote, and Lauren Bacall were born. So were future Yankee stars Jerry Coleman and Dr. Bobby Brown. The same day that the Senators won the World Series, notorious film director Ed Wood was born.
October 10, 1924. The Washington Senators win their one and only World Series. The franchise would not win another for 63 years, until 1987, as the Minnesota Twins. It took until last night for another Washington baseball team to win one.
It was 95 years. Not as long as the Chicago Cubs, but longer than the Boston Red Sox or the Chicago White Sox. It may actually have been 62 seasons, since there was no MLB team in Washington from 1972 to 2004, but that's still a long time.
But it's over.