A while back, I came across an article in the Washington Post with a list of baseball stadiums that have been in D.C. over the years. Some, like Griffith Stadium, I knew about. Others, like Capitol Park (or Capitol Grounds, as the refer to it) I decidedly did not. The fact that it was located directly north of the Capitol was, however, intriguing enough to have me do a little more research.
In 1883, baseball was still a new spectacle, and though there was already one established national league (named, appropriately enough, the National League) there was the sense that other leagues might well prosper as well. One of these leagues, the American Association was founded in 1882, and in 1883, a number of businessmen got together to found yet another league: The Union Association.
Several of the league’s original officers were from Washington, so it was not surprising that they would agitate to have a team in that city, in spite of the fact that both other leagues fielded teams there. The name give to the team was the National, which was a bit confusing as the Washington team in the American Association was named the Nationals.
Having come up with a name, the next question was where the games would be played. Fortunately, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company had a solution. They owned a plot of land on the NW corner of New Jersey Avenue and B Street NW, just north of the Capitol. Until recently, it had held stables for their street car horses, but the expansion of their car barn at 13th and Boundary (today Florida Avenue) Streets allowed them to shut this facility, tear it down, and rent the space for a baseball stadium. The team put in several thousand dollars into building bleachers and other amenities and opened it under the name Capitol Park.
In the meantime, further meetings of the Union League were held, and on March 17, it was announced that the leagues inaugural season would begin on April 19th. Which meant that the first games the National played was actually on April 17. This sort of chaos came to epitomize the season, as teams suddenly folded, and others were started to take up the slack. In spite of this, the Washington team found itself with an enthusiastic following. Too enthusiastic, as it were: A few days after their first home game, complaints began to surface that “the beautiful trees on New Jersey avenue [are being] broken and injured by the hoodlums who try to see the game from the branches,” as the Evening Star put it.
Even worse, the team was not playing well: after 19 games they were 3 and 16 – which was not even the worst record in the league; that sorry spot was taken by the Altoona, Pensylvania team, who had won exactly two games. Unsurprisingly, they were one of the clubs to fold shortly thereafter.
There were bright spots that year, such as when they beat the Baltimore team so thoroughly that they did not even bother returning for the 9th inning, preferring to make it to their train to return home instead. Or when they won a game against the Pittsburgh Stogies by the narrowest of margins.
Down 1 – 0 with two outs in the 9th, Pittsburgh managed to get a man on third. The next ball was knocked out of the park – but was declared foul. The Stogies vigorously contested this, but during the discussion, a National retrieved the ball, and tagged out the runner at 3rd, who had strayed off his base in the excitement.
In spite of such heroics, the Nationals found themselves some 46 games behind the league-leading St. Louis Maroons – who were themselves some 21 games ahead of the next team. With such disparity in quality, as well as the confusion brought by the serial collapse of some teams – only five of the 12 managed to play even close to a full season – the league was doomed and collapsed.
The Nationals returned the next year as a member of the Eastern League, and continued to play at Capitol Park. Unfortunately, midway through the season, part of their left field was sold to a builder, who planned on putting in houses and shops. Somehow, they managed to keep the development at bay, and struggled through the end of the season.
Maps from a few years later show that the development that had threatened their play did not come to pass for several years, and today, the area is entirely empty. Baseball, once played within a long fly ball of the Capitol, is relegated to fields miles away.
This post was edited to correct which league the other team that went by the name Nationals played in. It was the American Association, not the National League. There was no Washington team in the NL until 1886.