Major League Baseball / National League - Washington Nationals

Nationals Name Not New to Washington, D.C.

'Nationals' have a history in area lore

By Mark Newman / MLB.com

In 1873, Remington produced the first practical typewriter, Jesse James and his gang pulled off the first successful train robbery in the American West, Tchaikovsky composed The Tempest, and the first professional baseball team to be named the Washington Nationals took the field in the National Association. There are a handful of reasons why Washington's newest professional baseball team has just been named the Nationals, and historical significance is one of them.

The original Washington Nationals played in the National Association in 1873 and 1875; the Union Association's Washington Nationals played in 1884; and the American Association's Washington Nationals played in 1884 as well.

After the 1899 season, the Washington Senators of the National League folded in the 12-to-8-team contraction. When Ban Johnson's American League began play in 1901, Washington, not wanting to confuse fans with the previous franchise, called themselves the Nationals. However, the fans reportedly never took to the name and took it upon themselves to call them the Senators -- even after the club came out for the 1905-06 seasons with the Nationals team name on their uniforms for everyone to see.

In 1912, when Clark Griffith was named manager, newspaper writers referred to them as the "Grifs." In the early 1950s the team changed logos to one incorporating 'NATIONALS' within it, and after the fans continued to reject the name they were officially renamed "Senators" in 1956. It was one of the unique examples in sports history in which it didn't matter what anyone in an official capacity had named the club -- the fans decided their own name informally in that case, and, after all those years, ownership eventually gave in.

Now "Nats" is back in the Washington newspapers as a familiar and easy-to-fit headline word. It is expected to be a more well-received name this time around.

For one reason, now the "Nationals" will actually play in the National League. It was always hard to get used to calling an AL team the Nationals in the first half of the 20th century, so now there is a practical reason for the name.

The most obvious reason of all, of course, is what the name represents to Americans. The District of Columbia is the national capital, and the team will move from Montreal (pending MLB owners' approval) and temporarily play its home games at RFK Stadium.

Mark Newman is enterprise editor for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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