MAY 23 IN BASEBALL HISTORY: WASHINGTON SENATORS ESSENCE OF FUTILITY

MAY 23, 1901 | CLEVELAND, OHIO – The Washington Senators were one of eight charter members of the American League when it began play in 1901. The Senators were also the essence of futility during most of their 60 years in the nation’s capital (the franchise moved to Minneapolis in 1961 and became the Minnesota Twins). They spent 60 years in the Washington, D.C., winning one World Series**.

A game on this date in 1901 gave their fans a glimpse of how difficult it would be to love the Senators. Washington had a 13-5 lead over the Cleveland Blues (today’s Cleveland Indians) in the bottom of the 9th with two outs.

The Senators needed one more out. They couldn’t get it. With two outs and no one on base, Cleveland scored 9 runs to beat the Senators 14 to 13. One more example of the Washington Senators’ essence of futility.

Contributing Sources:
Baseball-Reference May 23, 1901 
retrosheet for May 23, 1901
Chicago Daily Tribune, May 22, 2017,

 

Published by

Bill Grimes

I'm from Chicago. I worked in broadcast journalism for much of the 1970's and 80's. In 1990 I became a litigation consultant, retiring in 2017. Around 2005 I recall flipping through the sports section of the newspaper coming across "On this day in baseball history Willie Mays hit his 600th home run." I enjoyed the one-liners, but I wanted more. I wanted a story. I took my news reporting skills and started researching and telling baseball stories, one for every day of the year. TodayinBaseball.com is the result.