The Twins Owe it to Baseball to Celebrate Walter Johnson and the Washington Senators

[Greggory Masterson]

The Twins commemorated the 1924 Washington Senators World Series victory last week, the first of three championships in franchise history. They recently finished a series against another team who used to play as the Senators. Any fans disinterested in the club before it reached Minnesota probably hate baseball.

The Twins got their start in 1901 as the Washington Senators. Sure, they began playing baseball in Bloomington 60 years later, but they didn’t fall out of a coconut red pine tree. They have a proud history as one of the eight charter member franchises of the American League. As such, they are responsible for maintaining that place in baseball history.

Many Minnesota fans may be hesitant to embrace that responsibility. Some may not even be aware of the franchise’s history prior to 1961. There was some confusion amid the Twins’ celebration of the 1924 World Series and (hilarious, out-of-context) retiring of the W alongside Twins greats and Jackie Robinson’s 42 two weeks ago.

In 1961, Calvin Griffith moved the Washington Senators (sometimes referred to as the Nationals) to Minnesota and renamed them the Twins. Baseball was moving to the West, and Griffith saw an opportunity to place a team in the Upper Midwest. Teams moved all the time, back then. Of the eight charter members of the American League, only four remained in the city they started. The Athletics had moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955. They kept their name the whole way, but the Brewers decamped from Milwaukee to St. Louis and rebranded themselves the Browns--then, when they flitted off to Baltimore, they became the Orioles. (The original Baltimore Orioles folded.) It’s what teams did, and continue to do. Sometimes they kept their names, like the Athletics or the Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta team that really wanted to hang onto their branding. Other teams remained in place and changed names, like the Cleveland Bluebirds-turned-Bronchos-turned-Naps, who also finally settled on one name for a long while before becoming the Guardians a few years ago.

That movement or name change doesn’t mean that the franchise ended. The players were still there. The most obvious example for Minnesota fans is Harmon Killebrew. Killer played for the franchise 21 of his 22 years in MLB. Six of those seasons came for the Washington Senators, which includes an All-Star appearance in 1959. Other Twins legends, like Earl Battey, Bob Allison, Camilo Pasqual, Jim Kaat, and Zoilo Versalles came over in the relocation. At that time, they were as much Senators as they were Twins.

Sure, they didn’t play in Minnesota before 1961, but they never left their organization to get here. It was the same guys, in a different shirt. This might be controversial to say, but the team does not belong to the city; it just lives there. Just ask baseball fans in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and now Oakland. We're 140 years past the idea that professional-caliber teams would be made up principally of players from the city they represented. Once that representation ceases to be geographically determined, one has to acknowledge that some of our loyalty is to the organization, rather than the place. How much of each it ought to be is a personal choice for each fan.

Baseball continued in the nation’s capital. Immediately after the Senators left for Minnesota, MLB expanded and placed a new Washington Senators in D.C. The District of Columbia kept baseball, but that’s a new team, even if it has a different name. Killebrew, Allison, Pasqual, Kaat, and Versalles were replaced by Dick Donovan, Joe McClain, and Bennie Daniels. The rose by another name didn’t smell as sweet.

What claim did the new Senators have over the old Senators? They didn’t get to claim Killebrew and company. They had their own story to write. And they wrote that story in Washington until 1971, when the franchise relocated to Arlington and became the Rangers.

Three decades later, the Capitol got another shot at baseball in the form of the Washington Expos’ relocation and rebranding as the Nationals. But, again, they brought their own story to the D.C.

Why does this history lesson matter? Well, for one, it lays out the complexity of the revolving door of baseball teams in Washington. But it also highlights a conundrum—a confusion over who retains the Washington Senators' history. As a Minnesota baseball fan, that might not matter to you. But it should.

No player’s story better drives home the point than Walter Johnson. The Big Train, depending on your definition, may be the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball. All-time, he ranks 1st in shutouts, 2nd in wins (417), 3rd in innings pitched (5,914), 7th in ERA (2.17), and 9th in strikeouts (3,508). Baseball Reference ranks him 2nd in career pitching WAR, and FanGraphs ranks him 4th.

Johnson played his entire 21-year career for the Senators, between 1907 and 1927. He deserves to be celebrated, even by current baseball fans. But who will do it, if not the Twins—the franchise for which he threw almost 6,000 innings?

The Texas Rangers lay no claim to him. Those Senators didn’t exist within Johnson’s lifetime, and they were only in town for 11 years. It’d be sacrilege to have a Walter Johnson night in Arlington.

The Nationals have a better case, but it’s still weak. The franchise now resides in D.C., and at times the Senators of yore went by the name Nationals, but this franchise, which started in Montreal decades after Johnson’s passing, has no connection to him other than living in the same place 80 years after his career ended. I’ll be dead before the former Montreal Expos have the honor of calling Walter Johnson one of their own, at least in any exclusive sense.

That duty, and privilege, falls to the Twins—the franchise that employed Johnson for 21 years. There's real connective tissue between him and these Twins. For better and worse, the Twins organization's history can't be told without Calvin Griffith, whose father Clark pitched alongside Johnson and then became the president of the team, before passing it to his stepson. Calvin, the same man whose casual racism cost the Twins Rod Carew in the 1970s, was a bat boy for Johnson the year he did what Carew never quite could--bat .400 in a championship season. It's not all happy history, but the Griffith family is a vital part of Twins history, and the Griffith family became a baseball family in Washington.

Sure, you might say that Johnson belongs to Washington baseball and its fans, and you have a point. Because a franchise and the place where it resides are not one and the same, a player, a team, and a local fan base can all belong to each other, with overlapping, countervailing, and interleaved loyalties. You can apply that same logic to Minnesota baseball fans, to explain why those fans might have no connection to Johnson. But it’s not about Minnesotans and Minnecentrism. It’s about baseball history.

You don’t have to claim Walter Johnson as a Minnesota baseball legend. But the Minnesota Twins—the former Washington Senators, who live here now—do need to claim him, because no other franchise properly can.

Walter Johnson is a giant in baseball history, but there are also 39 more years of non-Big Train baseball for the franchise in Washington. There are 60 years of stories to be preserved.

If the Twins don’t take it upon themselves to keep that history alive, who will? Sure as hell not the ex-Expos.

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[Karbo]

Great article! Kind of like the Wild and North Stars situation. The wild celebrates many players from the North Stars days. I have no idea if the Stars celebrate the old days but they should. I still get kind of angry about that move.

[Al from SoDak]

5 minutes ago, Karbo said:

Great article! Kind of like the Wild and North Stars situation. The wild celebrates many players from the North Stars days. I have no idea if the Stars celebrate the old days but they should. I still get kind of angry about that move.

Only "kind of angry?"

[MMMordabito]

Celebrating the Senators is a good thing, but this piece could have been written without being condescending to other fans and punching at the obliques of other franchises.

[Al from SoDak]

Loved this article. Yes, Walter Johnson was awesome and deserves to be remembered. You're right, the Twins should claim them. There are others. Players who made the Hall of Fame. Goose Goslin. Joe Cronin. Sam Rice. There are many more. They are even listed on the Twins official website https://www.mlb.com/twins/history/baseball-hall-of-famers

[MMMordabito]

1 minute ago, Al from SoDak said:

Loved this article. Yes, Walter Johnson was awesome and deserves to be remembered. You're right, the Twins should claim them. There are others. Players who made the Hall of Fame. Goose Goslin. Joe Cronin. Sam Rice. There are many more. They are even listed on the Twins official website https://www.mlb.com/twins/history/baseball-hall-of-famers

If they're listing them on the website, then aren't they claiming them?

[EGFTShaw]

As an OG, capitalize on that and run with it.

Killer, TonyO, Carew, Kaat and Blyleven are who got me started when i was growing up in NW MN.

Also I can't forget Cesar "HBP" Tovar.  The "Clean" Perry, Jim vs I Can Sell A Video on the Spitter Gaylord.

Walter Johnson:
Wins: 417–279
ERA: 2.17
Strikeouts: 3,508
Shutouts: 110
Manager W/L: 529–432
Percent: .550

I didn't know he managed as well.

[bean5302]

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

[BH67]

32 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

Given the significant influence of Clark Griffith in the history of pro baseball, these Twins carry by subsequent family heritage a true connection to the original Senators who were, as is said, in a city that was "first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League."

Glad to hear about the recent recognition of 1924, but they could've waited a week for better synchronization as the 1987 and 1991 National League champions arrive next at Target Field.

[Schmoeman5]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

So because they changed the name from Senators to Twins that triggers an automatic disconnect from the past. The Senators weren't bankrupt, nor were the Dodgers or Giants. Not sure about the A's. All those clubs celebrate their past champions and players. I lived in the Bay area and saw multiple games where past champions were celebrated. I went to a Padres game where they celebrated Ted Williams who played on the PCL San Diego Padres. Same for DiMaggio who was honored by the Giants from his days as a Seal. No affiliaton at all with the Giants and a Yankee to boot.. So celebrate the past, precedent or not.

[jkcarew]

22 hours ago, bean5302 said:

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

If you accept the 65 Twins as part of ‘The Franchise’…you kinda have to accept the Senators, no?
 

The first great team of the Minnesota era was pretty much built by the Senator’s organization. Versailles (MVP), Mincher, Allison, Pascual, Battey, Killebrew, and Kaat. And that doesn’t count a guy like Oliva, who was already being targeted by a Senator’s scout, although not signed (by the original Senator’s scout) until the start of the Twins first season of existence. It’s fairly easy to argue the likelihood that Kaat, Oliva, and Killebrew would all be wearing different hats in the Hall of Fame had the Twins not been the Senators.

[JCinNWMN]

The 1901 Washington Senators is the same franchise as the current Minnesota Twins. The history of the team while in Washington is as much a part of the organization as anything that has happened since 1961.

[DocBauer]

8 hours ago, bean5302 said:

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

Not trying to distract from the OP as I think there might be some NFL and NBA references to be made, but the Rangers from DC is different from the Twins move.

Where do the Senators go bankrupt, not play, and then are bought and moved to MN? 

And even if they DID go bankrupt, even for a season, isn't that the franchise bought by Griffith?

[DJL44]

I think the history stays with the fans. I know there are still Philadelphia fans who celebrate the Athletics. Jackie Robinson is a Brooklyn Dodger. Walter Johnson is a Washington Senator.

[RpR]

1960 Senators

1961 Twins

[Ski U Mah Gopher]

22 hours ago, bean5302 said:

The Washington Senators are not the Minnesota Twins. I view franchise moves as essentially, the franchise goes bankrupt and ceases to exist, but that's especially the case when the "Senators" returned a year after moving away before almost immediately failing again and then becoming the Texas Rangers.

This desire to tie the Twins or Minnesota to a franchise which has been dead for 65 years to find something... anything to celebrate doesn't resonate with me. Claiming Walter Johnson as a Twins player feels totally disingenuous, like desperation, despite him being arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It's not without precedent to tie a current location/team to a former location, but in many cases, the team name never changed (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics, New York Giants).

In basketball, the Clippers claim Bob McAdoo as one of their greatest, even though he was on the Buffalo Braves. Look at the Kings records, and you still see Oscar Robertson.

The only exception to this is if the league says the relocated team is a new franchise and the old team still claims the rights to the teams records (see Cleveland Browns and Arizona Coyotes)

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I am proud to have been a Washington Senators fan as a boy, who was born in Washington, DC in 1944, while my father was in the army overseas in WWII. My mother had moved in with her parents in Washington, DC until my father came home from the war. When he returned, I was 9 months old. My grandparents remained in D.C. when my parents and I moved to Statesville, North Carolina, when I was 4. I still live in Statesville. I was the only person in my school who was a Washington Senators fan. "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American league." I was teased by the Yankee and Dodger fans. Later, my grandparents moved to Statesville, NC, where we lived. I could keep up with the Washington Senators because my grandfather still subscribed to the Washington Post. Later,  when the Senators moved to Minnesota, I was sad, but I still pulled  for my franchise.  My favorite players, Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos, Harmon Killebrew (who had played in Charlotte) and Bob Allison,  were now Twins and so was I. Charlotte was 45 miles from my home and Charlotte was a Senators/Twins farm team, so I could keep up with the Twins prospects through the Charlotte Observer and some baseball games from time to time. Washington was the closest major league city to my home town in Statesville, N.C. But I have come to love Minnesota and the fans . In 1987 and again in 1988 I came to Minnesota to visit my friend, Mark Davidson, from Statesville, who was playing for the Twins  then. I had an amazing time and loved Minnesota in July. I have pulled for this franchise over 70 years and feel it is appropriate that the current Twins fans  honor the history of this great franchise by publicly  recognizing its origins. Long live the Senators/Nationals/Twins.