50 years ago today, the Washington Senators ...
 

... played its last game, before relocating to become the Texas Rangers. I would love to have attended this game, but with 6-week-old twins and two other kids under age five, there was no way for this to happen. Yesterday, the Washington Post had this interesting piece about this last game - I think folks will enjoy this read (hopefully, you won't encounter a paywall): https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...971-bob-short/

My sister and her boyfriend attended this game. A few years ago, for Christmas, she gave me the ticket stubs along with a Ted Williams “My Turn At Bat” paperback book that they were handing out at the game. Along with other game stubs of games she had gone to. One of them was also the 69 All-Star game ticket stub.

She taped the tickets to the back page of the book. But I’m good with that!

Needless to say, I love my sister!

I even found a tape recording of the game years ago and bought it. Them moving, even as bad as they were, sucked big time to a 12 year old version of me at that time. To this day, Bob Short can rot in hell as far as I am concerned.

Such a shame they were pulled out of DC.

My friends and I went. It was ugly. Someone hung up a "F--- Short" banner and it went downhill from there.

Reminds me of the bicentennial Stones concert at RFK that had to be stopped because people were shooting off fire works in the crowd. Back then we were allowed to carry coolers full of beer into the stadium -- but we were so much older then, we are younger than that now.

Nice Bob Dylan / Byrds refernce.

I left for college in late August, so the final game was not an option for me. But, in the late 60's, the Senators had areas in RFK designated as "Fan Club" seats for the more popular players. So a fan could sit in the Frank Howard fan club area, Mike Epstein fan club area etc. Perhaps the tickets cost a little more or the Senators performances were poor, but for whatever reason, somebody at my high school got the idea to create our own "fan club". So they picked the player who had the worst BA with qualifying plate appearances, which was Joe Rudi, then a young player for Oakland, who visited for 9 games a season. Rudi quickly became an all-star player and the "Joe Rudi fan club", Washington chapter, would show up when Oakland was in town. At least that's the way I remember it. It was our way of coping with the Senators chronic fecklessness.

WOW
Only know it threw the history books.
Only a toddler then,
Thanks for sharing and an interesting read.

https://www.yurasko.net/wfy/2011/09/...inal-game.html

This LINK is the Radio Broadcast of the game. Interesting to listen at the 2:43 mark about the build up and the people on the field

Thanks for posting this, Jeff, it's amazing to listen to. I got to be great friends with the broadcaster, Ron Menchine, and it was always a hoot to listen to his opinion of Bob Short and MLB for letting him get away with it. Ron was a terrific talent, by the way, an old-school sports voice, who did Maryland and Navy football games among other things in his career, not to mention a speaking part in the movie, "All The President's Men." My heart had already been broken when the original Nats franchise left after the 1960 season, only to become the winningest team in the A.L. for the decade of the 1960s in Minnesota, so I could give a shit by the time the expansion team left.

Even if it came off a batting practice pitch, the Frank Howard home run was a great moment. Other than a few brief flashes from Mike Epstein and some great fielding by Ed Brinkman, he was the only good thing about the Senators teams from the late 60s that I grew up with.

All of this happened way before my time, and so I don't know much about it, but I just read now that Short was the one who purchased the Minneapolis Lakers and moved them to LA. We all know that LA Lakers went on to become the most popular sports franchise on the planet.

I also liked Tim Cullen, Ed Stroud and Paul Casanova. We never got to see Toby Harrah, Dave Nelson, and others mature as they were all shipped off to the foreign country of Texas. Just another reason to hate Texas. I had one already.....(HTTR) and the move just added fuel to that fire.

Frank Howard was/is/and always will be my favorite player of all time. Ken McMullen was pretty good at 3B. Too good as he was traded for Aurelio Rodriguez. Blecch.... At least his 69 Topps card is memorable. Chortle.....

And lets not forget Curt Flood and Denny McLain and their short stints with the Nats too! "The days of wine and roses"..... What ex Senator said that later on in life?

Dude had a bad habit of crushing the hearts of the local fanbase. Such a putz...

Here is the book and the tickets mentioned in my previous post.

While we are on the Senators subject here. Does anyone else have this? And do you know if Tom Holster came out with a second volume?

I went to a lot of games, with my Dad and once we were old enough to navigate the buses my friends (can't believe we were doing that at the age we did it, ah well, different time), and the best thing I can say is I got to see most of the great players in the AL like Mantle, Frank and Brooks, Killebrew, Kaline, a young Reggie, etc.

It was awful when they moved but we lived in the MD suburbs and it really wasn't that far to Memorial Stadium or too many years later we all had licenses, so it wasn't like we totally lost out on live baseball.

I lived just outside of DC in Rockville. I could never get on the Orioles band wagon. It just did not seem right to me. Nothing was quite the same and I just did not have that connection to the team.

On the upside, the Senators never had another losing season after they left for texas. :-) I kept telling myself that over the years anyway.

I never really bonded with the Birds either, I know just what you mean, but still, it was baseball.

At least I got to witness the Grand Slam of sports championships in my lifetime.

Bullets
Redskins
Capitals
Nationals

Sorry but I just do not follow the Mystics....

I really did not think the last two would ever happen. I am so happy to be wrong.

Now if I could only find a Bullets Championship pennant, I will have all 4 first win pennants. It is a hard thing to come by.

Does Bullets Fever still happen to you every year? :eek:

The Hayes Unseld teams really were fun.

The Opera is OVER!!!! The Fat Lady Sang! I wore that shirt until it was threadbare. Good times!!!!!!

Now, it is more enjoyable to watch Maryland basketball. What passes for pro ball today is just not basketball. Damn, I am old......

EEEEEEEEE! Oh yeah!

And don't forget KP. He made us short people think we could play too.

Fear the turtle.
I loved Dandridge, memories of course get distorted but I recall him outplaying Erving in the semis the year they won, especially in the fourth quarters.

Bobby D. was the key add to get the Championship. E could carry them into the 4th quarter, but he would disappear at crunch time and the last 10 minutes would belong to Dandrdge.

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I would spin that to say E concentrated on defense and rebounding down the stretch lol, but yeah, a typical E game was 10 in the 1st, 8 in the 2nd, 6 in the 3rd and 0-2 in the 4th.

Freddie Brown on Seattle was also a great 4th quarter player. It was an interesting series because neither Seattle nor Washington was supposed to be anywhere near the finals, Portland had dominated the West and Philly the East.

Bullets Fever by Nils Lofgren:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLA_FH3LIf0

I was a huge Baltimore Bullets fan. I'm still upset Abe Pollin moved the team to DC. :mad:

Butch, I have a copy of this Washington Senators Checklist Book. I'm not aware that a 2nd volume was ever produced. If I remember correctly (I often don't), Tom Holster also produced a Senators newsletter for a short while - I think I have a couple issues of them in a box somewhere. I wonder whatever happened to Tom.

I, too, prefer watching college basketball to the pro game, because college kids play at least some defense. However, much more enjoyable than watching Maryland Terps basketball is watching UVA Cavaliers basketball, especially since the arrival of Coach Tony Bennett - Go Wahoos!! :D

UV who???? :cool: :D (I hated it when MD left the ACC, just ain't right.)

He did produce a newsletter but I missed out on them. I had his address at one time as I ordered the book from him. I believe it was advertised in SCD?? Memory is vague on that too. I have some of the boxes checked off in my copy.....but not many. I do have most all the team sets from 52 to 71 completed and variations. I even have the Safety sets from 70 and 71. Trying to find those variations is much harder.

Good to know I am not the only one. Cheers and thanks for getting back to me.

Fear the Turtle. :p

hahahahah thanks for the flashback. I remember the "catch bullet fever" phrase but had long forgotten the song. So cool!

It's interesting listening to you fans talking about the cherished teams that are so foreign to all of us people who didn't live in those particular markets. The 'only' team I knew growing up was the Mets (with a slowly reached acceptance of the Yanks), and I thought the only fans who felt bitter disappointment were from my parents' generation when California ripped their hearts out by stealing their beloved teams.

I just remembered a quote by Hayes about Unseld, and I'll repeat it in the vernacular: Wes don't need no stats.

I guess it's fair to say that in general the 70s were the doldrums for NBA basketball and that Bird and Magic and then Jordan really revitalized it, but if you were a close fan of the game there were some great players in that era, and it was a pretty competitive league with a lot of different championship teams. And I just looked it up, 8 different winners during the decade.

https://dcbaseballhistory.com/2013/0...ries-part-one/

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Yep. I got to like the O's in the late 70s and early 80s, went to many games, rooted for them, loved listening to Chuck Thompson and John Miller, two of the best to ever do a game. But I was a D.C. kid, that was my city, and Baltimore was not. I'm sure a lot of suburban Maryland kids, especially the younger ones, made the transition almost seamlessly, but I had too much water under the bridge with my Nats at that point.

I struck up a friendship with Dandridge some years ago. He played his college basketball and now lives in Norfolk, my home town. He told me that the Bullets acquired him specifically to guard Erving because we always had trouble with Philly in the playoffs. A terrific guy and well deserving of the HOF.