Washington DC Baseball

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The 1909 Washington Senators won 42 games, lost 110, and finished in eighth (last) place in the American League. They were managed by Joe Cantillon and played home games at National Park. The 1909 Senators still hold the Major League record for the most games lost in one month of a season, with 29 losses (and only 5 wins) in July.

(Both Germany Schaefer and Nick Altrock joined Washington in 1909. Though their comedic antics would not begin in earnest until 1912,) Comedy was indeed what the Washington ballclub was best at in 1909; it slipped to only 42 wins in 152 games. The highlight of the season was a scoreless, 18-inning tie with the Detroit Tigers on July 16. Ed Summers pitched the whole way for the Tigers, and he permitted just seven hits and one walk until, mercifully, the game was called because of darkness. The 1909 Nationals still hold records for fewest runs scored in a season (380) and the most times shutout in a season (29). They finished an unbelievable 56 games behind the first-place Tigers and 20 games out of seventh place. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

Clown Prince of Baseball: 1912 photograph of ballplayer turned comedy act, Nick Altrock, as he dances on the sidelines of a game in full uniform.

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How Walter Johnson became a National Hero (Part 2): We return to Deveaux's account of Walter Johnson's rise to national recognition: Johnson's record was 1-6 largely because of a lack of offensive support, when, on July 28, he struck out 15 Browns in St. Louis to earn a 2-1 win in 16 innings. With that game, in which Walter recorded his highest strikeout total to date, he undertook a string of 11 wins in 13 decisions. Then, over four glorious days in early September, the 21-year-old accomplished a feat not seen before or since.

The chain of events began innocently enough when on Friday, September 4, 1908, Johnson pitched a six-hit 3-0 shutout against Jack Chesbro and the New York Highlanders. On the following day, the New Yorkers' chagrin, not to mention surprise, can only be imagined when they saw Johnson warming up on the sidelines. It should be pointed out that in 1908, Big Ed Walsh of the White Sox led the league in games started with 49, the rough equivalent of a start every third game. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

We will pick this account up again soon, but in the meantime, the photograph by Thompson shows Walter Johnson swinging the bat c.1912-15. Walter was a good hitter for a pitcher at a time when pitchers were expected to be able to hit well enough to play the field and pinch hit to compensate for small rosters and frequent player injuries.

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Player #34: Clifford D. "Cliff" Blankenship. Catcher/first baseman for the Washington Senators in 1907 and 1909. 49 hits in 231 career plate appearances. He debuted with the Cincinnati Reds in 1905. He played a key role in Washington's signing of Walter Johnson.

Blankenship is remembered as a scout of sorts -- while injured with the Senators, he was sent to check out Walter Johnson in Idaho. Per the legend, he was told to bring his bat and, because he wasn't much of a hitter in the majors, to sign Johnson only if it was not possible to even hit a foul ball off him. Blankenship wired back: "You can't hit what you can't see." The Senators signed Johnson and the rest is history.

Here Deveaux picks up the story of Johnson's discovery: The baseball gods were indeed smiling down upon the Washington Senators on the day in 1907 when catcher Cliff Blankenship broke his finger. Joe Cantillon wanted to get some use out of the disabled Blankenship and decided to dispatch him on a scouting assignment. . . . Initially, Johnson wasn't even the main focus of Blankenship's scouting mission. The Senators already had their eye on Clyde Milan, a 20-year-old outfielder with Wichita, of the Western Association. An esteemed judge of talent, Joe Cantillon had spotted Milan when the Senators had played Wichita during a spring exhibition game on their way home from training camp in Galveston, Texas. There is little doubt that Blankenship's scouting trip was the most successful in all of history. Milan was signed for $1,250 and would become the team's best outfielder for the next 14 years. During all of that time, his roommate would be Walter Johnson. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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Player #35A: William E. "Wid" Conroy. Utility player for the Washington Senators in 1909-1911. 1,257 hits, 22 home runs, and 262 stolen bases in 11 MLB seasons. Debuted with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901. He had at least 384 plate appearances in each of his 11 MLB seasons. He was the first-string SS on the NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1902. He moved to 3B in 1903 with the New York Highlanders, twice leading AL third basemen in total chances per game. He was an opening day starter for the Highlanders for the first five years of the team's existence. In 1907 he swiped 41 bases second only to Ty Cobb. He finished his career with Washington and in one of his last games set an AL record with 13 total chances at 3B.

Conroy's SABR biography covers his heyday in New York and his demise in Washington: Wid spent the next six seasons (1903-8) with New York, never batting higher than .273, but finishing among the league’s top ten in home runs twice, triples four times, slugging percentage once, and stolen bases four times. In 1907, Conroy’s 41 steals tied for second, behind only Ty Cobb‘s league-leading 49. Consistently praised for his deft handling of the bat (like many players of the era, Conroy choked up on the bat several inches and found his base hits by punching the ball to all fields), Conroy was also known as a smart, speedy base runner, routinely taking “the biggest leads off base of any player in the big show.”

Following the 1908 season, in which he batted just .237 with a .296 slugging percentage, Conroy was sold to the Washington Senators for $5,000. Reflecting his solid standing within the game, Conroy’s acquisition was greeted with delight by Washington fans, who took it as a sign that “the local owners are sincere in their efforts to build up a winner.” Now 32 years old, Conroy failed to live up to the high hopes that had been set for him and finished the year with a .244 batting average and career-low .293 slugging percentage. He spent the following offseason “boiling out” in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and his offensive production improved slightly in 1910, but the following year he finished with a .232 batting average, the lowest of his career, while stealing just 12 bases.

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Player #36: Frank E. "Jerry" Freeman. "Buck". First baseman with the Washington Senators in 1908-1909. 142 hits in 2 MLB seasons.

Jerry Freeman was nicknamed "Buck", presumably after the major league star Buck Freeman, whose eleven-year major league career ended with 4 games in 1907. Buck then played most of the 1907 season with the Minneapolis Millers, hitting .335, while Jerry Freeman played for the same team and hit .362 (in his fourth season with Minneapolis). The next year Jerry was a regular in the majors. Buck stayed with Minneapolis in 1908 but hit over 100 points lower.

Jerry played almost all of the 1908 Washington Senators games at first base, making 41 errors, a total which led the league by a comfortable margin. His hitting was above average - his .253 batting average was second highest among the regulars, and his 15 doubles were also second highest. In addition, his 45 RBI led the team. The next year, however, he started slowly with the bat and the glove, and was gone after 19 games.

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How Walter Johnson became a National Hero (Part 3): Only three pitchers had made the road trip for the Senators, as the mound corps was beset by injuries, and Joe Cantillon had asked Walter prior to the first game of the four-game set in New York whether he could start three times in a row. The big Train would later confide that Cantillon had been able to placate him time and again in the same way -- Walter would ask the manager for an extra seating pass to a game for a friend, and Pongo Joe would surprise him with a half a dozen. When the manager unexpectedly asked him to pitch, Walter couldn't turn him down because, he explained, his friends were always after passes.

Going the route for a second straight day, Johnson gave up just four hits and shut out the Highlanders again, 6-0. Now there was talk that Walter might not only start three games in a row, but get a shutout in all of them. The Washington Post reported that manager Cantillon had joked that maybe Johnson would pitch again Monday. The city was mad about Walter and the sports pages were jammed with stories about him. There was no chance that he would get three shutouts on consecutive days, however, since the third day was the Sabbath day. It would be another ten years before baseball could be played in New York on Sundays. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

We will get back to this account again soon, but in the meantime, here's a pin featuring Walter from the 1924 season.

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Player #37: Robert S. "Bob" Ganley. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1907-1909. 540 hits and 112 stolen bases in 5 MLB seasons. He debuted with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1905. His best season was 1907 for the Washington Senators as he posted a .337 OBP with 40 stolen bases and 73 runs scored.

Ganley played a lot of all three outfield positions during his five years in the majors, appearing with three teams. He went from playing for excellent Pittsburgh Pirates teams in 1905-06 to poor Washington Senators teams in 1907-08 and part of 1909 to an excellent Philadelphia Athletics team for most of 1909. Ganley was in the top ten in the league in stolen bases twice while with the Senators, and was fourth in the league in hits in 1907. Bob came to the majors at age 30, after a long career in the minors. After his major league days, he again played in the minors. He moved around so much that he was called "the globetrotter of organized baseball". He played for New Haven, Albany, Brockton, Columbus, Toledo, Marion, Schenectady, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Johnstown, Des Moines and Newark, and that was just in the minors. He managed the Fredericton Pets in 1913 and the Perth Amboy Pacers in 1914.

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