Washington DC Baseball

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

That's a great picture. Thanks for posting it.

Wikipedia reports that "The 1891 Washington Statesmen baseball team finished the season with a 44–91 record in the American Association in their first season. After the season, the AA disbanded and the Washington club, renamed the "Senators," joined the National League.

So, despite the "National" on their uniforms, the team was apparently officially named the Senators. Perhaps the first official use (in MLB) of the team-name Senators -- I believe the American League team that began in 1901 (now the Minnesota Twins) was not officially designated as Senators until after Clark Griffith died in 1955.

The official name of most 19th Century (and early 20th Century) professional baseball teams consisted of the city name and "Base Ball Club", or something similar. There were a few exceptions in the major leagues, such as the Eclipse club that was eventually renamed the Louisville club, and the Metropolitan club (of New York), which disbanded after the 1887 season. The nicknames given to teams, such as the Giants, Browns, Statesmen, and Senators, were just that--informal names used by the fans and the press, but not really official names, and different newspapers in the same city might favor different names.

Anyway, whoever made the Wikipedia entry had probably never seen the image of the 1892 team or done much research in the newspaper archives. By the end of the decade, the team was usually called the Senators in the press, but it's hard to imagine that this was the most commonly used nickname for the 1892 team, considering what was printed on their uniform shirts.