Washington Senators: The last game was a riot, a historic broadcast

The life of the Senators ended in a likely win forfeited when heartsick fans stormed and destroyed the field. Hear it on the full surviving radio broadcast.

To keep you company until baseball returns from its coronavirus-imposed silence, MLB.com links to one classic game each per major league team. From the Los Angeles Angels winning their first (and so far only) World Series to Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter (as a Texas Ranger). From the Boston Red Sox finally breaking the actual or alleged Curse of the Bambino to Joe Carter’s 1993 World Series-winning three-run homer. Jewels all.

But I’d like to invite you to add a classic game surviving only in its September 30, 1971, WWDC radio broadcast. A sad classic at that.

It involves the Rangers—on their final day as the Washington Senators, in front of over fourteen thousand heartsick RFK Stadium fans knowing that 71 years of Washington baseball were about to end for what looked then to be forever.

It also involves the Senators hosting the New York Yankees, getting to within one out of banking a 7-5 win… and ending up with a fan riot leaving Senators relief pitcher Joe Grzenda unable to pitch to Yankee second baseman Horace Clarke. They ended up having to forfeit the game to the Yankees, leaving one of the American League’s charter cities without major league ball until the National League opened for business there in 2004.

Washington Senators: The Last Game Was a Riot

A week before the game, District of Columbians, to whom the Washington Post sports section was their daily Bible reading, picked up theirs. There was the grand old man of Washington sports journalism, columnist Shirley Povich, castigating the American League’s owners for letting debt-ridden Bob Short buy the Senators in the first place only to kidnap the team to Texas, after swearing to anyone listening that that was the last thing on his mind.

“His fellow club owners let go unrecognized Short’s continual mistakes that got him into the mess that, he says, threatened to bankrupt him,” Povich fumed.

They paid scant heed to the fact that Short foolishly overborrowed to buy the team and then pleaded poverty, and to the stubborn refusal of this novice club owner to hire a general manager, and his record of wrecking the club with absurd deals . . . [T]he impoverished Senators were the only team in the league billed for the owner’s private jet, with co-pilots. The owners had ears only for his complaint that he couldn’t operate profitably in Washington. They showed utterly no concern for the Washington fans, who were asked to support last—place teams by paying the highest prices in the league, a little matter Short arranged by trading away his infield and boosting the ticket prices far beyond those of the Baltimore Orioles, who were playing the best baseball in the league only forty miles away.

Povich exaggerated only slightly. The Second Nats (the originals, of course, moved to Minnesota after 1960, prompting the expansion Senators creation in the first place) actually hung in the 1969 pennant race before finishing fourth in the brand-new American League East. (“Teddy Ballgame of the MFL,” crowed Jim Bouton in Ball Four, referring to Ted Williams, the Hall of Famer now managing the Senators, “was named Manager of the Year.”) They finished rock bottom in 1970 but fifth in 1971.

The ancient image (Washington–First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League) wasn’t always true.

A too-heavily-leveraged Short refused to sell the team even to local buyers unless they were willing to pay him a few million more than the franchise’s actual value. Povich compared that demand to that of the guy who bought and abused a $9,000 car (in 1971, nine large got you a fully-stuffed Cadillac Sedan de Ville), spent $3,000 to fix it up, and proclaimed his car was worth twelve grand.

Short met with his fellow owners earlier in 1971 and one and all agreed something must be done about the Washington situation. That was the public story.

Washington Senators: The Last Game Was a Riot

At last, the final Senators game arrived. Righthanded pitcher Dick Bosman for the Second Nats against lefthander Mike Kekich for the Yankees. To nobody’s surprise, perhaps, RFK Stadium was festooned liberally with protests against Short, most dominant among the signs being those bearing Short’s initials.

The Yankees themselves were in the middle of their own lost decade, that sad 1965-75 period in which the once-proud dominators were reduced to just another team whose glory years looked behind them forever. But on this night they showed flashes enough of that old Yankee power—including three home runs—to stake Kekich to a 5-1 lead entering the bottom of the sixth.

That’s when Frank Howard checked in at the plate to lead off. He was the most popular man ever to wear the Second Nats’ uniform, a genuinely gentle giant, whose 6’8” frame, overwhelming plate presence, and penchant for stratospheric home runs belied a friendly, accommodating, playful personality who turned early skepticism into a love affair between player and city.

Howard became a Senator after 1964 because the Los Angeles Dodgers had two pressing concerns equal to his for more playing time. They thought Howard was unlikely to work the bugs out of his game, most of which involved his inability to lay off pitches even he couldn’t hit. They also feared Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax’s freshly diagnosed arthritic pitching elbow would leave them too compromised for lefthanded pitching.

So the Dodgers dealt Howard, the National League’s 1960 Rookie of the Year, for lefthander Claude Osteen. By 1969, Howard finally found someone who convinced him to take pitches that looked suspect: Ted Williams. He simply asked if Howard could lay off pitches that didn’t come into or near his wheelhouse. When Howard said yes, Williams simply said, “Can you do that for me?”

The behemoth had never walked more than sixty times in any previous season. He walked over a hundred times in each of 1969 and 1970 and hit 92 bombs over those two seasons, including a league-leading 44 in 1970. (The Year of the Pitcher in 1968 didn’t faze him, either—Howard crashed a league-leading 44 then, too. In 1969 he hit 48 and finished second by one to Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew.)

Howard was 34 in 1971, and the years of rush-conditioning (he was never enthusiastic about spring training) began catching up to him. He entered the final game of the Second Nats with 25 homers. If he had one last wish before being forced to leave Washington he came to love, the Washington Monument (another of Howard’s nicknames, though broadcasters and teammates called him Hondo) wanted nothing more than to hit one more out.

You’ll hear it for yourself on the radio broadcast, but for those disinclined to pictureless baseball here’s Senators play-by-play announcer Ron Menchine calling it in the top of the sixth:

Well, for the third time tonight, Frank Howard is getting a standing ovation from the crowd here at RFK Stadium . . . They’re seeing the big guy wearing a Senator uniform for the last time . . . Confetti is lining the field. Fans are tearing up scorecards and paper and tossing it out . . . and Hondo takes the first pitch from Kekich high and inside, ball one. Howard has 25 home runs this year. He has 82 runs batted in. The 1-0 coming—high, ball two. Tonight Hondo has walked and popped to short . . .  Two balls and no strikes on the big guy—swings and fouls it back, it’s two and one . . . The Senators trail five to one, but they have time to catch the Yankees–there’s a long drive to left field!—this one is going, going, it is gone!! Frank Howard has just hit home run number 26 and he gets a standing ovation! . . . (crowd noise) . . . and the cheering for Howard who waves his batting helmet . . . I just wish the owners of the American League could see this, the ones who voted ten to two to move this club out of Washington . . . He comes out again . . . Hondo threw his helmet into the stands, a souvenir of the big guy’s finest hour in Washington . . . The crowd screaming for Howard to come out again . . . and here he comes again!! . . . A tremendous display of the enthusiasm of Washington fans for Frank Howard. Hondo loves Washington as much as the fans love him. It’s 5-2 . . .

It wasn’t a classic Howard blast, merely banging off the back wall of the left-field bullpen instead of traveling to the upper deck. But it was enough to put as much of a charge into the Senators as it did the fans. And a shake into the Yankees, who abetted what turned into a four-run, game-tying Second Nats inning with a pair of infield errors. Two innings later, two more Yankee errors, a run-scoring single, and a sacrifice fly put the Senators ahead 7-5.

Grzenda took his 1.93 ERA and went out to pitch the top of the ninth, trying to save it for Paul Lindblad, who’d turned in two spotless relief innings and became the pitcher of record when the Senators went ahead. Assorted fans began bounding on and off the field when the inning began. Then Williams made a big mistake.

Washington Senators: The Last Game Was a Riot

Williams ordered his bullpen pitchers to get the hell out of there—but forgot to tell them to take the safer route out of sight and under the stands to the clubhouse. The pitchers trotted out of the pen and down foul territory. “That’s when all hell broke loose,” wrote Tom Deveaux in The Washington Senators, 1901-1971. Menchine’s radio call tells the story of that fatal inning a little bit better.

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A pinch hitter for the Yankees, for Jack Aker, Felipe Alou . . . Alou hitting .286 . . . with eight home runs, 21 doubles, six triples, and 69 runs batted in. The pitch to Felipe—a ground ball to short, Toby Harrah up with it, bobbles it, picks up, throws to first, in time to get Alou! Good recovery by Toby Harrah . . . and we are now two outs away from the conclusion of major league baseball in the nation’s capital. Hopefully, it won’t be too long . . . The fans have demonstrated their enthusiasm tonight. The batter is Bobby Murcer, who takes the pitch in for a strike . . . 14,460 showed up tonight . . . The one-strike pitch is outside, one and one . . . Murcer has flied to center, hit a two-run homer, his 25th of the year, then he grounded out to first to the pitcher covering, and walked . . . He swings and misses, strike two. One ball and two strikes on Bobby Murcer. He’ll be the second leading batter in the American League, trailing only the batting champ Tony Oliva of the Minnesota Twins. The one-two coming—is outside, it’s two and two. Bobby Murcer—batting for the New York Yankees with one out and nobody on in the ninth inning . . . the two-two from Grzenda—once back to Joe, he spears it, he throws to Tom McCraw at first, and there are two outs.

At which point, the crowd noise swelled, with loud groaning included, and the listener just knew all hell broke very loose.

And some youngsters are coming out on the field. This will not be a complete game unless they get back. This will not be a complete game unless they get back. So we certainly hope that this ball game can be concluded. The players now are clearing the field . . . As pandemonium has broken loose . . . and the field is filled with many souvenir hunters . . . The Senators lead, seven to five, with two outs . . . Police are trying to restore order, but the crowd continues to mill all around the field . . . Some fans are scooping up dirt . . . more and more now are converging on the field . . . The Senators are one out away from victory . . . the Yankees have two outs in the top of the ninth inning . . . realistically, they’re a lot closer to defeat, because they’ll never get this ball game underway again . . . The bases are gone, there’s a patrolman standing on home plate, and another one on the mound, and they’re very rapidly becoming out-numbered . . . (more crowd noise) . . . A mass of bodies on the field . . . most of them just standing there, getting a glimpse of RFK Stadium, the site of major league baseball perhaps for the last time . . . it may well be that the Senators will be denied their final victory . . . Now fans are converging upon the scoreboard . . . And again, the souvenir hunters are trying to get anything from the stadium . . . They are succeeding . . . and reinforcements have been called, and hopefully the field will be cleared so we can get the final out in this historic ball game . . .

Menchine’s broadcast partner Tony Roberts broke in, saying, “Realistically, Ron, it’ll take the National Guard to get ‘em out of here, because there won’t be much left of this scoreboard. It’s like an army of ants out there going through the jungle. They’re just chopping away at anything they can get their hands on!”

Then Menchine spoke again.

It’s a shame they couldn’t have waited for one more out. But they didn’t. And now the job at hand . . . is to try and clear the field so this ball game can continue . . . The remainder of the fans, and I don’t believe anyone has left this ballpark tonight, are watching the activity on the field . . . but it is activity everyplace . . . The scoreboard has been completely decimated. Nothing remains . . . I hope (scoreboard operator) Norm Hammer does . . . I wonder what goes on in Normie’s mind out there right now . . . I believe (public address announcer) Bert Hawkins has just said that this game will be forfeited to New York . . . Well, it’s a strange way to lose a ball game. It’s a strange way to wind up major league baseball in the nation’s capital . . . but I guess it’s been a topsy-turvy season, no one believed that there would not be major league baseball in the nation’s capital. But it’s sad to report there no longer is.

Or would be, until a different round of baseball leadership shenanigans ended by moving the Montreal Expos to Washington to become the Nationals. That’s when the ball Joe Grzenda was unable to pitch to Horace Clarke finally got thrown from the mound to home plate—by President George W. Bush, to whom Grzenda handed the ball for a ceremonial first pitch in RFK Stadium on Opening Day 2004.

The number of years it took for the Show to return to Washington turned out equal to the number on Frank Howard’s uniform when he cranked that final Senators home run. Thirty-three.