1938 Washington Senators -- Part 1
The 1938 Washington Senators won 75 games, lost 76, and finished in fifth place in the American League. They were managed by Bucky Harris and played home games at Griffith Stadium.
Deveaux puts the 1938 season in context: When Mel Almada, the "California Spaniard," hit only .244 in nearly 200 at bats (to start the 1938 season), Griffith engineered a deal with the Browns which brought Sammy West back to the Senators after a 5 1/2-year separation. This exchange would be the first one in a while to turn heavily in the Nats' favor. West, still a dependable centerfielder at 34, hit .302 in 92 games after coming on board. The trade was consummated on June 15, 1938, an important date on baseball's timeline. On this day, Johnny Vander Meer, a 23-year-old lefthander of the Cincinnati Reds, hurled a second consecutive no-hitter.
Vander Meer's feat remains unique in baseball history. The second of the no-hitters took place in the first night game played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. (Cincinnati's Crosley Field had been the scene of the first night game in the big leagues, back on May 24, 1935.) Clark Griffith had said that there was no chance night baseball would ever catch on in the majors. The game, the Old Fox reasoned, was meant to be played "in the Lord's own sunshine."
It was longer still before baseball began to see another kind of light. On the same day John Vander Meer tossed his second no-hitter, Billy Leo Williams was born in Whistler, Alabama. Williams, a sweet-swinging lefthanded hitter who would make the Hall of Fame, was black. To baseball's eternal shame, it would be nearly ten more years before a black man would be allowed to participate in a major-league game.
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