Griffith Stadium, Walter Johnson, and a Tour of Local Memorials
Griffith Stadium
In April, Griffith Stadium is the most famous baseball park in the land. To it come the highest government dignitaries and the most humble urchins to watch the President of the United States make the pitch which officially opens the major league season…. Three pennants have flown from Griffith Stadium masts and one world championship flag, 1924. From its mound, the great Walter Johnson pitched his first major league victory. And over its fence, Babe Ruth hit his last American League home run.
“Griffith Stadium and Its History,” 1960 Washington Senators Program and Scorecard
Our late mother Ann Grayson Guevara was born and raised in Washington, D.C. One of the keepsakes she handed down to us was a July 1960 Washington Senators program. The then-17 year-old had just graduated from high school. The program is an interesting snapshot in time. It was the final year of the original Senators franchise, destined to move to Minnesota for the 1961 season. It was also the penultimate year of Griffith Stadium, abandoned by professional baseball and football after the construction of D.C. (later RFK) Stadium in the autumn of 1961. Ann kept score of this game against the Kansas City Athletics, a Senators win which featured a Harmon Killebrew home run.
Ann’s father Leon Harman Grayson, a Savannah, Georgia native, moved to Washington D.C. in the summer of 1935. In a July 8th letter to his wife Mary who was soon to join him he wrote, “Went to the ballgame, saw Lou Gehrig the New York home run king knock a homer with the bases full.” It was the 18th of Gehrig’s record 23 career grand slams,1 and a memorable initial trip to Griffith Stadium. Exactly two weeks later, Griffith Stadium hosted “Walter Johnson Day” to show support for the long-time Senators icon and then-embattled Cleveland Indians manager. 1935 turned out to be Johnson’s final year in professional baseball.
An historical marker stands today on Georgia Avenue, near the former Griffith Stadium site. It includes photos of baseball Hall-of-Famers Walter Johnson and Josh Gibson, and reads in part, “Griffith Stadium occupied this block until it was razed in 1965. (Howard University Hospital opened here ten years later.) During the 1940s, Griffith crowds cheered batting superstar Josh Gibson of the Homestead Grays…. Here Walter Johnson led the Washington Senators to their only World Series victory in 1924…. Griffith also hosted the Washington Redskins (1937-1961), student cadet competitions, Boy Scout jamborees, National Negro Opera Company performances, and mass baptisms conducted by Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, whose Church of God still stands just across Georgia Avenue.”
Walter Johnson, A Modern Pilgrimage
He was, beyond doubt, the greatest pitcher that ever scuffed a rubber with his spikes. But he was much more than that. Walter Johnson had all the virtues commonly but not always truthfully attributed to athletic heroes: honesty, decency, dignity, thoughtfulness and a genuine modesty. A simple man, he was, in his way, a great man.
Frank Graham, Baseball Magazine, February 1947 2
Irving Street
Walter Perry Johnson arrived in the Nation’s Capital as a 19 year-old rookie in 1907, “nothing but a green country boy.” 3 The city embraced him, and Walter made the region his home for most of the rest of his life. After marrying in 1914, Walter and the former Hazel Roberts purchased a home on the 1800 block of Irving Street N.W., overlooking Rock Creek and the National Zoo. One wonders if the current owners (or even the city historical society) are aware that for ten years this stately three-story brownstone townhome was the residence of the greatest pitcher of all time and his young family.
Bethesda Farmhouse
Following Walter’s late-career World Series win in 1924, the family purchased a farmhouse in suburban Bethesda, Maryland, a “spacious 11-room, white clapboard Victorian dwelling… set back from the road by a large front yard and circular driveway. The property included a four-acre fruit orchard, a grape arbor, flower gardens…, chicken coops… a kennel…, and a side yard fashioned into a baseball diamond.” 4 The house still stands, though no longer set back from a significantly widened Old Georgetown Road. The farmland was long-ago subdivided into single-family homes, adjacent Johnson Avenue a sole reminder of the former landowner. The local historical society is very much aware of the pedigree of this house.5
“The Greatest Ballplayer Who Ever Lived”
Walter Johnson was one of the five initial inductees into the new Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.6 Their plaques are displayed in a central location at the Cooperstown, New York museum to honor this inaugural class.
There was talk of a Walter Johnson memorial at Griffith Stadium after his retirement in 1927,7 but it only became a reality after the great pitcher’s death in 1946. The eight foot tall bronze plaque was dedicated in June 1947 in the presence of Walter’s mother by President Harry Truman who said, “I am honored and privileged to… unveil this plaque to a man who in my opinion is the greatest ballplayer who ever lived.”8
Walter Johnson High School
Walter Johnson lived in Montgomery County, Maryland for more than 20 years, and served on the county Board of Commissioners in the late 1930s and early 40s. In 1956 the county named their new high school after the man who had farmed less than two miles south in the 1920s and 30s. When professional baseball abandoned Griffith Stadium, the Johnson Memorial was moved to the high school. After a mere 15 years at the stadium site, the memorial has appropriately been displayed on a pillar above the high school athletic fields for more than 60 years.
Other Memorials
In 1980 a Washington D.C. Sports “Ring of Fame” was created at RFK Stadium. Once again, Walter Johnson was in the first class of six men.9 In 1997, a Bethesda entry into a summer wood-bat baseball league was named the Big Train, Walter Johnson’s nickname. The team plays at Shirley Povich field at Cabin John Regional Park, about one mile west of Walter Johnson High School. A silhouette of Johnson in the 1924 pitching pose graces the brick entry. In 2009 a controversial sculpture of Johnson was unveiled at Nationals Park.10 In 2020, the city of Rockville, Montgomery County’s seat, installed an historical marker and a wooden statue of Johnson in Dogwood Park. The adjacent full-sized baseball diamond is named Walter Johnson Field.
The Johnson Gravesite
Walter’s wife Hazel died at age 36, leaving Johnson a single father. He never remarried. Hazel’s viewing and funeral was held in their Old Georgetown Road farmhouse, and she was buried at the ca. 1740 Rockville Cemetery, just across Rockville Pike and Veirs Mill Road from present-day Dogwood Park. Sixteen years later, a dying Walter Johnson told the Catholic hospital chaplain, “Father, I guess I’m going to be seeing Hazel. It’s been a long time.”11
Old cemeteries are notoriously poorly marked, but on a late autumn visit the location of the Johnson gravesite was obvious, even from a distance. The memorabilia stacked on and around it suggested I was not its first recent visitor. The Johnson plot sits on a peaceful hilltop overlooking gently descending woods.
Connecting the Generations
Walter Johnson’s funeral was held at the Washington Cathedral in December 1946. Johnson’s biographer and grandson Henry W. Thomas writes,
“Dignitaries of the highest level sat next to ballpark vendors…. Graying comrades who had supported Johnson in the heat of countless battles on long-ago ballfields – Joe Judge, Sam Rice, Ossie Bluege, Muddy Ruell, Roger Peckinpaugh, Tom Zachry, Mike Martin, and Nick Altrock – strained their muscles now to carry him to his final resting place. Clark Griffith, Clyde Milan, Bucky Harris, and the others walked alongside him for the last time. Surrounded by family and friends, amid the rolling green hills of Maryland he loved to wander with his dogs, Walter Perry Johnson was laid to rest.”12
Sam Rice, Clark Griffith, and Bucky Harris were each elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. The game Ann attended featured only one future Hall-of-Fame player in either lineup that I could ascertain – the aforementioned Harmon Killebrew – though the Kansas City roster included players Whitey Herzog and Dick Williams, both later enshrined for their roles as managers. Other connections were to be found, however.
Nick Altrock
The final name listed on the 1960 roster was Altrock, Coach (Hon.). This was Nick Altrock, then 83 years-old, the same man who at age 70 “strained his muscles” as one of Walter Johnson’s pallbearers. Nick was briefly a star pitcher, winning 62 games and a World Series with the Chicago White Sox from 1904-1906. His pick-off move was legendary. After hurting his arm Nick ended up on the Senators pitching staff with a young Walter Johnson. Henry Thomas writes, “Altrock’s playing career was just a preamble to his record 46 years as a coach at Washington. He holds the distinction of wearing a major-league uniform for more years, (55) officially than anyone else, and on October 1, 1933, he became the oldest player in a game when he pinch-hit at the age of 57…. [But] it wasn’t as pitcher or coach that Nick Altrock achieved his greatest fame…. Altrock was a talented comedian…. [whose] specialties were pantomime and juggling, at which he was an expert.”13 Nick spent a few winters on Vaudeville, and “at his clowning peak, Altrock enjoyed a salary that rivaled Babe Ruth’s.”14 Nick died in Washington D.C. in 1965.
Ossie Bluege…
The 1960 Senators Board of Directors are depicted on the third page of the souvenir program. Calvin Griffith was team owner and President, and the adopted son of long-time team owner and stadium namesake Clark Griffith (1869-1955). Clark in turn was Walter Johnson’s manager, mentor, and friend. The 1960 board consisted primarily of Griffith extended family members, though the unassuming, bespectacled Executive Secretary and team Controller was an exception. Oswald “Ossie” Bluege, then 59 years old, served in various roles for the Senators franchise for 50 years, having previously been farm director, manager, coach, and player, a teammate of Walter Johnson during the golden 1920s, and considered by many to be the greatest fielding third baseman in history.15 During Johnson’s last days, “teammates and other friends came by to visit. ‘It breaks your heart to see him lying there,’ Ossie Bluege told a reporter, ‘knowing there isn’t a thing you can do for him except to sit with him as long as the nurses will allow.'” 16 Like Nick Altrock, Ossie also served as pallbearer for his legendary teammate.
… and Harmon Killebrew
Harmon Killebrew, who hit a home run the night Ann went to the ballpark, told this story during his 1984 induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In the early 1950s Senator Herman Welker of Idaho told Clark Griffith about a young player from his home state. “More than anything else, just to keep Senator Welker quiet, Mr. Griffith sent Ossie Bluege out to see me…. And Mr. Bluege came out to that little town. He rented a car in Boise and drove through the rain 60 miles, and it didn’t look like we were going to play the ballgame, it had rained very hard…. And the townspeople, knowing that a major league scout was there, hurriedly got the field in order…. And that night I happened to hit a ball over the left-field fence… Mr. Bluege went out the next morning and stepped it off and he immediately called Mr. Griffith, and he said it was 435 or so in a beet field – not a potato patch – and he thought that was a pretty good hit for a 17-year-old boy…. It was through the recommendation of Ossie Bluege that I am standing here this day. Mr. Bluege is here, and I would like to recognize him. Thank you, Ossie.”17 Ossie Bleuge died the following year at age 84. Harmon Killebrew died in 2011.
Jack McKeon
Ann’s eight children were also born and raised in Washington D.C., a block away from her parents Leon and Mary. We attended our share of expansion Senators games at RFK Stadium, until they too left town in 1971. In 1984 I enlisted the Navy. Near the end of Ann’s 1960 Senators Program is a list of scouts and minor league affiliates. The manager of the Class B Wilson, NC club is 29 year-old Jack McKeon, the same “Trader Jack” who was primarily responsible for the success of my adopted San Diego Padres when I was stationed there in the late 1980s, and later a World Series winning manager with the then-Florida Marlins. Jack is now 92 years old, a devout Catholic who credits the intercession of the Virgin Mary and St. Therese of Lisieux for his entry into and accomplishments in professional baseball.18 Ann also had a great devotion to Our Lady and St. Therese and, please God, still does in a higher and truer way.
“Night Baseball”
On a trip home in 1990 my mother and I went on an outing to the Phillips Art Gallery where I was taken by one of their minor works. “Night Baseball” is a scene at Griffith Stadium painted by the gallery’s co-founder Marjorie Acker Phillips (1894-1985). “She portrayed a night game between the Senators and the New York Yankees in the summer of 1951…. Most prominent is the batter, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio…, recognized by his famous wide-open stance. It was an important time for DiMaggio: his last season.”19 Ann bought me a print, which hangs in my office today.
From Generation to Generation
Of Ann’s eight children, six live or lived in Montgomery County, MD. She has 15 grandchildren. Two are presently students at Walter Johnson High School.
Ann and her parents Leon and Mary Grayson are also buried amid the rolling green hills of Montgomery County, Maryland – at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Aspen Hill. Many if not most of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will likely join them in time.
Walter Johnson, his friends and teammates, Griffith Stadium, Leon and Mary, Ann, her children and grandchildren, the 1960 Senators, and a modern-day pilgrimage. It’s all connected because we’re all connected. If you get the chance, read the Henry W. Thomas biography of his remarkable grandfather. It is rife with entertaining stories of many people that played and interacted with the greatest pitcher that ever lived. And save your next baseball program. Who knows what stories and future generational connections might lie within it.
1 https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/Lou_Gehrig_Grand_Slams.shtml
2 Quoted in Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train by Henry W. Thomas © 1995 University of Nebraska Press pg. xi
3 ibid, pg. 29
4 ibid, pg. 288
5 https://bethesdahistoricalsociety.org/walter-johnson-house/
6 The others were Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner.
7 Thomas, Walter Johnson pg. 423 (note 38)
8 ibid, pg. 429 (note 3)
9 The others were Red Auerbach, Sammy Baugh, Josh Gibson, Clark Griffith, and Joe Judge. https://www.dcsportshalloffame.com/about.html
10 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/walter-johnson-statue
11 Thomas, Walter Johnson pg. 348
12 ibid
13 ibid, pg. 99
14 Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), “Nick Altrock” by Peter M. Gordon https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/nick-altrock/
15 Thomas, Walter Johnson pg. 186
16 ibid, pg. 345
17 SABR “Ossie Bluege” by Joseph Wancho https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ossie-bluege/
18 SABR “Jack McKeon” by Thomas J. Brown, Jr. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jack-mckeon/
19 https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/night-baseball
1 Comment
beth s
December 14, 2022 at 12:27 pmWow- Great research and photography ! I dont know why I am so surprised that Mom kept score since i know she loved numbers. That program is a treasure. Thanks for sharing and all your work to preserve these memories