Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Thank you, Val, for the sharp Rice RCs. And thank you, Lucas, for the video showing an (very) early Washington baseball pin. In response to Lucas' contribution, I will defer today's scheduled segment and digress briefly:

Washington was more active and important to the early development of baseball than most people might think. For example, it was the Nationals, a team of "government clerks", who went on the first "western swing" in 1867, two years before the Red Stockings' more famous tour. They went undefeated, including beating the Cincinnatis with Harry Wright in the lineup, 53-10, until shockingly they lost to the Forest City Club from Rockford, IL, a team of schoolboys, 29-23. The winning pitcher was seventeen-year-old A. G. Spalding, a Rockford grocery clerk.

Shirley Povich continues: The defeat of the Nationals was as sensational as their string of victories had been. Unfeelingly, the Chicago newspapers taunted the Nationals for that defeat by the Rockford schoolboys and predicted a victory the next day for their own "Champions of the West," the Chicago Excelsiors, who were to be the Nationals final opponents on the tour. The Excelsiors earlier in the month had twice defeated the Forest City conquerors of the Nationals, and in anticipation of further humiliation of the Washington club, the largest crowd ever to witness a baseball game in the West paid the admission fee of half a dollar.

Humiliation was the word for what took place that day, but it was the Excelsiors, not the Nationals, who were humbled. The Nationals took an early 7-0 lead to demoralize the Excelsiors completely and give them a sound beating by a score of 49 to 4. It was a glorious finish to the tour of the Nationals.

And then scandal broke briefly. The Chicago Tribune flatly accused the Washington club of "throwing" the Rockford game for betting purposes before taking on the Excelsiors. In high outrage, president Jones of the Nationals, accompanied by Arthur Pue Gorman, stomped into the Tribune office and compelled a retraction of the charge. (The Washington Senators by Shirley Povich.)

(By the way, Gorman would go on to become a senator from Maryland and give impetus to the use of the nickname "Senators" for future Nationals teams.)

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