It's easy to see why Washington baseball fans are a confused lot.
Their original team, called the Washington Senators, played in the National League until 1899. Then they became an American League team in 1901, called by the new ownership the Nationals so as not to have them confused with the old Senators. But fans kept calling them the Senators, while the team kept calling itself the Nationals, and everybody else nicknamed the team the "NATS" although nobody was sure whether that was short for NATionals or SeNATors and it wasn't until 50 years later that the team began officially calling itself what the fans had been calling it all along.
Then to top it off, the team moved to Minnesota to become the Twins, but a new franchise stayed in Washington called the Senators, until that franchise moved to Texas to become the Rangers and was replaced by another new Washington team called the Nationals.
Got all that? Here it is again, only a little slower, and with more detail.
The National League operated a franchise in Washington until 1899. That team, called the Senators, folded and the new American League took Washington as an original franchise city when it began play in 1901. This team, called the Nationals, debuted with a 5-1 win over Philadelphia's Athletics on April 26, 1901.
The team had nothing but second division finishes in its first decade, the worst coming in 1904 when it compiled a 38-114 record. The biggest event during this time was the debut in 1907 of a true prodigy — a right hander with otherworldly talent named Walter Johnson. He would retire twenty-one years later as arguably the greatest pitcher in the game's history.
In 1912-13, Johnson had perhaps the best back-to-back seasons any pitcher has ever had and in so doing, he single handedly pulled the Nats into the first division for the first time. In 1912, he went 32-12, a 1.39 ERA and 303 strikeouts. In 1913, he was a staggering 36-7, a 1.09 ERA and 243 strikeouts in 346 innings.
In 1920, Clark Griffith bought the team, beginning a seventy-two year association between his family and the franchise. He enjoyed his greatest success when the team won the 1924 championship — the only World Series triumph for a Washington team. Bucky Harris played second base and managed the team while Hall-of-Famer Goose Goslin drove in one-hundred thirty-nine runs and hit .344 while Johnson turned in a stellar 24-7 season to lead the pitchers.
Minnesota Twins History
