Small Triumphs Writ Large

What may have been most remarkable about Calvin Griffith was his candor. When the former owner of the Minneapolis Twins said of his new Minnesota home–where he had relocated the old American League Washington Nationals franchise that dated to 1901–that there he had found thousands of hard working white folks, he was giving vent to a conventional wisdom spoken more politely by far more than the rotund nephew of Hall of Famer, Clark Griffith. The City of Washington, DC became, in the years after the Civil War, one of the earliest and most enduring landings of the Great Migration of African Americans, President Lincoln’s sentinel to all who left the South, “yearning to breathe free.” Some saw a grand beginning in that history, others a past they could only hope to flee.

Calvin was merely off-leash, saying what many others said far more quietly and politely. The ugly truth Griffith articulated was an essential ingredient in Bob Short’s recipe for moving the last vestiges of baseball out of RFK, from whence they became the Texas Rangers. But here we are forty-four years later and there is something quite remarkable blooming in the green grass of Nationals Park and across the wide reach of the Nation’s Capital. The Washington Post sports page blared forth the possibility with three consecutive headings that encompassed the whole of its page one in the boldest font possible: “A Blowout” a “Boost” and a “Blast .”

The Post provided a joyous celebration of the wins of three sports teams: the Washington Wizards who won their second game of their playoff series against the Toronto Raptors, the gritty win of the Washington Capitals against the New York Islanders, and the 10-inning walk-off win of the Washington Nationals against the St. Louis Cardinals. All three games went on late into the evening and the Capitals game–which is do-or-die–may have had the most excitement as they won in overtime.

But the sweetest of them all may yet prove to have been the walk-off home run by Yunel Escobar that gave the Washington Nationals a reset against the St. Louis Cardinals. Drew Storen had blown the lead in the top of the ninth inning against the Cardinals. It was nothing egregious. A bloop single and another to bring the runner home, but Storen has a history with the Cardinals against whom he let in the winning runs in the fifth and deciding game of the 2012 NLDS. In a very similar situation with the Cardinals batting at the top of the ninth inning, Storen could not put them away. He got two outs but eventually turned a 7-5 lead into a 9-7 loss. Then last season in what would become another extra inning debacle, Storen yielded the tying run to the San Francisco Giants who went on to win that series as well.

There was not a single fan at Nationals Park last night that was surprised when Storen gave up the tying run. But what was different about this night was Yunel Escobar’s blow that won it for the Nationals. None of Storen’s team mates could redeem him last October thought there were so many chances to get him off the hook. Escobar did the deed and as he waltzed toward the plate, Escobar’s inner Cuban hot dog took over as he slid head first into home and the waiting arms of the Nationals.

Before the Nationals game began last night, there were interviews with Nick Johnson celebrating the 10 year anniversary of baseball’s return to Washington in 2005. Johnson was Mr. Clutch that year and it was only when he injured himself in late June that the team–comfortably atop the NL East–began to falter. Johnson and pitcher Livan Hernandez were the engines that made it work and Livan’s knees began to fail almost as soon as Nick Johnson’s did.

Then there was Tom Boswell whose interview was played across the Jumbotron talking about Washington, DC and the city that has had so little sports life over the many decades of recent history. “It’s a Redskins town,” he said quite truthfully and it has been for many years. But that is beginning to change. It began in early April, 1999 when Washington mayor Anthony Williams asserted his vision that baseball would soon return to DC. The St. Louis Cardinals were playing an exhibition game against the Montreal Expos. Mark McGwire had just given a batting practice display of balls hit into the upper decks of RFK Stadium for the fans who turned out early. Then Williams took the microphone to say that it might be someday soon when a team, maybe even those same Montreal Expos, would be playing in DC. Baseball was going to come back to Washington, Williams promised.

The mayor was true to his word and he fought all of the stereotypes of the city and helped birth what is growing into what any founding father would be proud to call his own.

Calvin Griffith is buried ironically in the same crypt with Clark Griffith and the rest of the family that defined Washington baseball from 1912–when Griffith first took the helm as manager of the old Nationals, until Calvin took them away. There were many proud moments that no one in this city could possibly remember. The principal owner of the team, Ted Lerner, saw the old Nationals play at Griffith Stadium and there are many others who survive from that era, but none was on hand for the last World Series in 1933.

That is what it will take, Tom Boswell said in his interview, to make the city whole again. A basketball championship would be a huge triumph as would a Stanley Cup. But the greatest affront to this city’s pride came from Calvin and Bob Short. Taking baseball away for 33 years was a slap in the face that requires its own redress.  Last night Yunel Escobar reminded us all what that may one day look like.

In 1924 the Washington Post write up after the World Series win by Walter Johnson, Bucky Harris and Clark Griffith included a description of the wild celebrations that overtook the city that night after the game. The one thing I will always remember was the depiction of a man, wearing a dress, who had taken over for a police officer–overcome with laughter and gaity–and commenced directing traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol Building. The pulse of the city is still beating just as steadily, and as the Post writers demonstrated, it is all there waiting to explode again, waiting for another chance to strut its stuff in whatever form or fashion the times may dictate, from 14th Street to South Half Street, there will be “Dancin in the Streets,” as sure as there will be a 2018 All-Star Game in DC.