Category: Baseball

Nats
World Champions, 2019. L-R: Adam Eaton, Patrick Corbin, Howie Kendrick, Trea Turner, Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, Dave Martinez, Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Kurt Suzuki, Sean Doolittle, Victor Robles. (Washington Nationals Inc.)
Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

Nats Win! Washington Baseball for New Generations. It’s 1924 Again

Comments 5 Comments

The great­est thing about the 2019 Nats is that base­ball is again span­ning the gen­er­a­tions in Washington.

Think about it. New York, Philadel­phia, Boston, Chica­go ben­e­fit from six gen­er­a­tions of unin­ter­rupt­ed base­ball. Pitts­burgh, St. Louis, Cleve­land, Detroit—the list goes on. Atlanta, Los Ange­les and Hous­ton have had half a cen­tu­ry or more to build a fol­low­ing: fathers and sons, par­ents and kids. Alas, Wash­ing­ton was with­out base­ball thir­ty-four years. In 1971, the expan­sion Sen­a­tors left for Texas; in 2005, the Mon­tre­al Expos became the Nation­als. A beau­ti­ful ball­park revived a decrepit area of the city, which now resem­bles Wrigleyville in Chicago.…

Read More Read More

Nats
Washington’s first World Series, 1924. President Coolidge with manager Bucky Harris and the first ball, game one, October 4th. Actually, “Silent Cal’s” wife Grace was the baseball fan. When Muddy Ruel scored the winning run she leaped to her feet cheering. The President said, “My word,” and dropped his cigar. (Library of Congress / public domain)
God is a Nats Fan: A Kid from New York Remembers

God is a Nats Fan: A Kid from New York Remembers

Comments 10 Comments

“God is a Nats Fan” first appeared in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor on 21 Octo­ber 2019. Scroll down to the com­ments for emails with fel­low fanat­ics as the 2019 World Series unfolds.

Yankee Stadium, 1958

When Wash­ing­ton was in town, the drill was always the same: 15¢ for a bus to the Stat­en Island Fer­ry. A nick­el fer­ry ride and 15¢ more for the BMT to Wood­lawn and Jerome Avenues. As the sub­way erupt­ed into sun­light from the bow­els of the Bronx, this kid wear­ing his navy blue hat with its white “W” would con­front the Citadel of Base­ball, proud and aus­tere with its eagle logos, bristling with pen­nants.…

Read More Read More

Krauthammer
Daniel and Charles Krauthamamer at Nationals Park. (Family photo / Washington Post)
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

Comments 6 Comments
“CK,” Churchillian

The best edi­tor I ever had wrote: “There is noth­ing to be said when a friend dies, even among peo­ple whose trade is words.” Much nev­er­the­less is being said about Charles Krautham­mer. That is fit­ting, and it is what we have the Inter­net for. (Some of the most touch­ing trib­utes are linked below. Fox News pro­duced a very fine trib­ute, “Krautham­mer in His Own Words” click here.)

My edi­tor meant, rather, that for some, words are inad­e­quate against “a big, emp­ty hole where there was once some­one you loved. And all the talk in the world won’t change that.…

Read More Read More

baseba;;
“Managed by Churchill”: The 1935 Bismarck, North Dakota team, manager Neil Churchill front and center. Future Hall of Fame pitching great Satchel Paige is standing behind him. Bismarck broke baseball’s color barrier twelve years before Jackie Robinson did it with Brooklyn in the major leagues. Sir Winston, who deplored segregation in the U.S. Army during World War II, would have approved. (National Public Radio)
Sir Winston Churchill spoke about baseball? Yes, that too…

Sir Winston Churchill spoke about baseball? Yes, that too…

Comments 1 Comment

A cor­re­spon­dent and fel­low devo­tee of the game asks if Sir Win­ston had any­thing to say about Amer­i­can base­ball. Out of fif­teen mil­lion words over nine­ty years? Of course he did!

It may seem odd, since base­ball is not an Eng­lish sport, and its clos­est coun­ter­part over there is rounders. But—ever obe­di­ent to the whims of Churchillians—I offer what he had to say on the matter.

The inter­est­ing pho­to above accom­pa­nied a nice arti­cle, “Churchill on Base­ball,” by Christo­pher Schwarz, which I pub­lished  a few years ago in Finest Hour 163. I sup­plied the fol­low­ing Churchill quotes as a side­bar to Mr.…

Read More Read More

Remember
The Easter Egg uniform spoof, April 2018. (SportsLogos.net)
Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

Comments 4 Comments

“Remem­ber When” was first pub­lished in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 18 April 2018.

On the first day of April, a spoof flashed around social media. In hon­or of East­er, all thir­ty Major League Base­ball teams would be wear­ing jer­seys in East­er egg pas­tel col­ors. April Fool! The day dawned, and the teams all wore their nor­mal uni­forms. The cul­prit, Chris Cream­er of SportsLogos.net, said it was all in fun.

Chris’s joke gained cre­dence thanks to MLB’s habit of com­mem­o­rat­ing every­thing from pet dogs to “our troops.” (“Pups in the Park,” who’s gonna clean up that mess?…

Read More Read More

Ty Cobb: Inconvenient Truths

Ty Cobb: Inconvenient Truths

Comments 0 Comments

Cobb as Mon­ster: “Give peo­ple some­thing they want to believe and they will take it and run with it and make it their own. After all, who doesn’t like a mon­ster story—especially one that allows the teller to express his own superiority—to say, ‘I’m not a slave to feel­ings of racism and anger like this pathet­ic man was; I look down upon that kind of behav­ior.’ A scary sto­ry that is also a feel-good sto­ry is hard to beat.”

Charles Leerhsen has done a rare thing: bucked pop­u­lar cant and human nature to deliv­er a breath­tak­ing reap­praisal of the great­est base­ball play­er of all time.…

Read More Read More

Washington Nationals: Wait Till Next Year

Washington Nationals: Wait Till Next Year

Comments 2 Comments

Long-suf­fer­ing Nats fans hoped 2014 would be The Year.

After play­ing door­mat to the Nation­al League East for ages; after blow­ing a sure Divi­sion Series in 2012, we all expect­ed our Wash­ing­ton Nation­als to put a stamp on the 90th anniver­sary of 1924—the last year Wash­ing­ton won the World Series.

Instead we lost the NL Divi­sion Series to a wild card team that had won only 88 games in the sea­son. We lost three games out of four, all by one run—games that could have gone either way. But the San Fran­cis­co Giants are pros, vet­er­ans of the play­off sea­son.…

Read More Read More

Ryan Zimmerman and the Curse of the Goose

Ryan Zimmerman and the Curse of the Goose

Comments 0 Comments

On June 23rd Wash­ing­ton Nation­als star third base­man Ryan Zim­mer­man went out with a ham­string injury that may side­line him for the rest of the sea­son. The effect on the team’s play was aston­ish­ing. At the close of play on August 1st the com­pa­ra­ble W-L sta­tis­tics were:

With­out Zim (first time): 21-24, .467 (equates to 76-84)
With Zim: 34-19, .642 (equates to 104-58)
With­out Zim (since 7/23): 3-6 .333 (equates to 53-109)

Mark Zuck­er­man of Nats Insid­er wrote on July 23 that from June 30th when they all came togeth­er, the Nation­als were the Nation­al League’s most pro­duc­tive team.…

Read More Read More

Berg
Moe Berg spent his last five years, 1935-39, in the big leagues with the Red Sox, where he joined another Senators alumnus, the immortal Joe Cronin. (Princeton Alumni Weekly)
Moe Berg: “Give My Regards to the Catcher” —Franklin Roosevelt

Moe Berg: “Give My Regards to the Catcher” —Franklin Roosevelt

Comments 7 Comments
Who was Moe Berg? Merely a major baseball league catcher who spoke fifteen languages and spied for his country in World War II. He has no brass plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they display his Medal of Merit.

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.