Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Wyatt A. "Watty" Lee. Outfielder and Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1901-1903. 30 wins in 549.1 innings pitched over 4 MLB seasons.

In 1903 he had an 8-12 record with a 3.08 ERA in 166.2 innings pitched. He finished up with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1904.

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[ValKehl]

George, I'm greatly enjoying seeing the pics of your vintage Washington cards and reading your informative write ups. Here's another "Watty" Lee card to augment your last post.

[ValKehl]

Delete - wrong forum!

[GeoPoto]

Val, that's a very nice Lee! Thank you for posting it. I don't have Lee, but I do have:

Player #25: Albert L. "Al" Orth. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1902-1904. 204 wins and 6 saves in 15 MLB seasons. He was the MLB wins leader in 1906. He was known as "The Curveless Wonder" relying on control and differing speed. His best season may have been 1901 with Philadelphia as he posted a 20-12 record with a 2.27 ERA in 281.2 innings pitched. He umpired, when necessary, as a player and in one game umpired and pinch-hit in the same game. He debuted with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1895-1901. He finished his career with the New York Highlanders in 1904-1909. He debuted as an umpire in the NL in 1912 and in 1917 was the umpire when Toney and Vaughn each pitched 9 innings of no-hit baseball, the only time it has happened.

Orth's SABR biography relates how his time in Washington ended as his discovery of a new pitch came too late: Like many of his Philadelphia teammates, following the 1901 season Orth jumped to the American League, signing with the Washington Senators. Orth again posted the lowest walk rate in his league in 1902, with just 40 base-on-balls allowed in 324 innings. Unfortunately, Orth only struck out 76 batters that year, finishing with a 19-18 record and subpar 3.97 ERA. He was even worse in 1903, winning 10 games against 22 losses while posting a horrendous 4.34 ERA. After starting the 1904 campaign 3-4 with a 4.76 ERA, Orth was traded to the New York Highlanders.

Shortly after his arrival with the Highlanders, Orth turned his season around, helping to keep New York in the pennant race until the last day of the season with an 11-6 record and league-average 2.68 ERA. Orth’s turnaround was probably due in part to teammate Jack Chesbro, who rode the spitball to a 41-win season that year. Orth himself said he first used the spitball at the end of the 1904 season and considered the pitch “more effective than a curve” with a “quicker break.” Orth threw it “regularly” in the 1905 season, as he posted an 18-16 record with a 2.86 ERA for the sixth place Highlanders.

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[GeoPoto]

Player #26: Albert K. "Kip" Selbach. Outfielder with the Washington Senators in 1894-1898 (NL) and 1903-1904 (AL). 1,807 hits and 334 stolen bases in 13 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .377. He led the NL in triples in 1895. Among his many good seasons was 1900 with the New York Giants as he posted a .425 OBP with 98 runs scored and 36 stolen bases in 611 plate appearances. His final seasons were with the Boston Americans in 1904-1906.

From Selbach's SABR biography: During 1902 it became known that the American League would not have a team in Baltimore in 1903. On August 26 Clark Griffith – acting as an agent for the league – signed Selbach, Billy Gilbert, and Jimmy Williams; all expected to play for the new team that was thought to be placed in New York. “Selbach and Williams said they are under guaranteed two-years’ contract to the Baltimore Club, which they would insist upon being fulfilled to the letter. Selbach says he called upon Johnson and Griffith merely to see if the American League would voluntarily increase his salary as a reward for his loyalty.”

In early December Selbach himself said he had not signed with Griffith. There were rumors that there wouldn’t even be a team in Washington and that the AL would place a team in Pittsburgh instead. Concerns among Washington area fans were assuaged on December 28, when Selbach signed a two-year contract – with the Washington Senators. Since he remained popular in the area (because of his previous stint with Washington's NL team), that seemed like a bonus.

Note that the back of the card was blank until its early owner took advantage of the spot to attach return instructions should it ever become lost.

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[GeoPoto]

The 1905 Washington Senators won 64 games, lost 87, and finished in seventh place in the American League. They were managed by Jake Stahl and played home games at National Park.

Prior to the start of the 1905 season, Washington's new ownership group attempted to put the club's recent history behind it by inviting baseball fans to submit their suggestions for a new name. "The Nationals" was selected as most acceptable but did not truly take. The name was ill-suited in the first place, as it suggested a National League team, and merely represented an oddly nostalgic longing for the bad ballclubs of the 1880s and 1890s. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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[GeoPoto]

The 1906 Washington Senators won 55 games, lost 95, and finished in seventh place in the American League. They were managed by Jake Stahl and played home games at National Park.

The highlight of Washington's 1906 season came in late August when the Senators brought an end to the 19-game winning streak of the "hitless wonders", the Chicago White Sox. This White Sox squad eventually won the pennant despite maintaining a .230 team batting average, the worst in the league by far. The White Sox took the 1906 World Series in six games from their crosstown rivals the Cubs, despite hitting just .198 in the fall classic. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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[RUKen]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

Prior to the start of the 1905 season, Washington's new ownership group attempted to put the club's recent history behind it by inviting baseball fans to submit their suggestions for a new name. "The Nationals" was selected as most acceptable but did not truly take.

I am doubtful that the name "did not truly take", as the team wore "NATIONALS" on their home uniforms that year. The newspapers adopted the name, which was often shortened to "Nats", a nickname that persisted for decades even after everyone stopped calling them the Nationals.

[Rad_Hazard]

Here my my 2 Washington cards:

[GeoPoto]

Thank you, Rad Hazard, for posting two nice OJ cards featuring Washington players.

Player #75D: Howard S. "Howie" Shanks. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1912-1922. 1,440 hits and 185 stolen bases in 14 MLB seasons. His best season was 1921 with Washington as he posted an OBP of .370 with 81 runs scored and 69 RBIs in 647 plate appearances. He finished his career with the New York Yankees in 1925.

We finish from Shanks' SABR biography and his life and death road to the big leagues: “My boy, prepare for the finish. You ain’t got more than a couple of weeks to live.” That is what a doctor told Howard Shanks in 1910. Shanks was told he had consumption (tuberculosis). He had just finished his second year of professional baseball, playing at East Liverpool, Ohio. Barney Dreyfuss of the Pittsburgh Pirates was interested in him, but Shanks only weighed 130 pounds at the time, and someone saw something that concerned them regarding his overall health. When they saw the medical report, the Pirates lost interest. For his part, Shanks went home, to prepare for death or one of the greatest comebacks of all time. He went on to play 14 seasons of major-league baseball and, though he died at the relatively young age of 51, it would be safe to agree with Shanks that “Either that doc didn’t know his business or Monaca (his hometown) is some health resort.” . . .

. . . In 1911, having survived the diagnosis, and put on about 40 pounds, he played for the second-place Youngstown Steelmen and hit .291 with nine homers in 124 games, while committing only three errors. Clearly, he was healthy. He stood 5-feet-11 and is listed as weighing 170 pounds. As early as May, he was being looked over by Jimmy McAleer. “The lad is about the best young outfielder I have seen this year…I had been tipped off some time ago to this player, and so I thought I’d go down and look him over. The lad is marvelously fast in the field and seems to know just what to do with himself. I can have him if I want him, and most likely I’ll take him, too, after a few weeks.” McAleer was unable to act right away, because Shanks was so popular with Youngstown fans that manager Bill Phillips did not want to let him go. (Washington selected him in that year's Rule 5 draft.

Note: Here we feature a putative Howie Shanks card from 1921, the W461-1 issued in his name, which actually pictures Wally Schang of the New York Yankees. Schang, thus, is the only player in the set technically featured more than once.

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[GeoPoto]

The 1922 Washington Senators won 69 games, lost 85, and finished in sixth place in the American League. They were managed by Clyde Milan and played home games at Griffith Stadium.

Smiles summarizes the early optimism surrounding Washington going into the 1922 season: . . . The Senators looked strong in March, and as Opening day approached the scribes rated them as serious contenders. "So wise a diagnostician as Babe predicts more trouble for his champions (the Yankees) from the Capital City, strange to say. Tris Speaker, manager of the Indians, and Lee Fohl of the St. Louis Browns, both of whom have high pennant hopes, figure Old Fox Griffith's club and not New York the one that must be headed in order to annex the laurel crown."

From another story that same day: "The acquisition of Peck (Peckinpaugh) just about made the ballclub. The Senators were weak at short for years. He fits in nice and pretty and the team is all ready to go. The players feel they have a good chance to win the pennant and we are inclined to string along with them."

. . . Another new attendance record was set as more than 25,000 saw the Senators open with a 6-5 win over the Yankees. The crowd was loud, animated and colorful. President Harding was seen to clap his secretary of state heartily on the back during the Senators' seventh-inning rally. The president kept a scorecard even with Walter Johnson Jr. sitting on his knee for the first three innings. The first lady wore out a pair of white gloves with her clapping. The crowd was "made up almost one-half of women in gayly decked hats and clothing, the mass took on the appearance of the spectrum. A splotch of gay red, a mass of green, somber black, grays in abundance, the peculiar mixture of colors which the flapper fan will wear to games this year all blend into a living, moving panorama of lights and shades."

Babe Ruth, under suspension for three days, walked into the stands alone in "spitter clothes to cheers and he smiled grimly as he took his seat." Ban Johnson entered later and sat next to the Babe.

(But) the spring analysis was way off. After that Opening Day win, the Senators lost eight of their next nine . . . They never recovered from that disastrous start. (Bucky Harris by Jack Smiles.)

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[GeoPoto]

Player #93: Henry S. "Harry" Courtney. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1919-1922. 22 wins and 1 save in 4 MLB seasons. He finished the 1922 season with the Chicago White Sox.

Courtney also played for the Washington Senators of the American Professional Football Association in 1921. That season he signed with the football Senators for their November 20 game against a team from Clarksburg, West Virginia. However Clark Griffith, the owner of the baseball Senators, found out about Courtney moonlighting as a football player. Griffith ordered Courtney to stop playing football or risk finding himself without a job in baseball. Courtney gave up his football career and continued to focus only on baseball.

With his football career ended, Courtney pitched five times for Washington in 1922 before Griffith sold him to the Chicago White Sox in May; 1922 was to be his last big-league season.

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[GeoPoto]

Player #82C: Edward P. "Patsy" Gharrity. Catcher with the Washington Senators in 1916-1923 and 1929-1930. 513 hits and 20 home runs in 10 MLB seasons. He also played some first base and outfield. He had a career OBP of .331. His best season was 1921 as posted a .386 OBP with 55 RBIs in 455 plate appearances.

Gharrity's SABR biography: . . . In 1921 Gharrity played in 121 games, 116 of them behind the plate. Offensively it was his finest year in the majors. He posted his best single-season totals in runs scored, RBIs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, walks, batting average (.310), slugging, and on-base percentage. The Washington-St. Louis game of August 9 is known in baseball circles because Browns pitcher Dixie Davis threw all 19 innings, allowing no hits in the last 9. Not to be outdone, Gharrity caught all 19 for the Senators, who lost 8-6.

Gharrity was the number-one backstop again in 1922. He got off to a slow start at bat and was hitting only .182 on April 25. In the next six games, against Boston and Philadelphia, he went on a hitting tear, going 12-for-22, scoring 9 runs and driving in 9. The pattern continued with Gharrity enjoying hot streaks and then slumps. His defense also suffered, especially on May 11 against the Browns. He made two errors on throws, lost his confidence and held the ball in a critical situation as St. Louis won 5-3. His shoulder bothered him most of the season and in early August he was sent to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, for treatment drinking the city’s spring water. He finally returned to the starting lineup on August 22.

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