The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C., United States. The Nationals are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. From 2005 to 2007, the Nationals played in Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium.
The "Nationals" name originates from the two former Washington baseball teams who held the same name (used interchangeably with "Senators"). They are nicknamed "the Nats", a shortened version of the Nationals name that was also used by the old D.C. teams.
An expansion franchise, the club was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1969. Then the Montreal Expos, the team was the first major league team in Canada, and played its home games at Jarry Park Stadium, then later, in Olympic Stadium. The team saw very little success, their most successful season coming in the strike-shortened season of 1994. They had the best record in baseball when the season was cut short, and were regarded by many to be the unofficial National League and world champions. This was widely considered to be the death blow for baseball in Montreal, although the team did stay in Quebec for 10 more seasons. After the 2001 season, Major League Baseball even considered shutting the team down (along with either the Minnesota Twins or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.) The team finally left before the 2005 season, moving to Washington to become the Nationals. This was the first complete name change for a relocating team in Major League Baseball since 1972, when the Washington Senators left D.C. to become the Texas Rangers. They are one of four teams to have never played in a World Series, never having officially won a league championship. They won a division championship, and advanced to the National League Championship Series, in their only playoff appearance, which was under the strange circumstances of the 1981 season.
On Saturday, March 29, 2008, the team officially moved into their new ballpark, located in Southeast D.C. near the Anacostia River and with views of the Capitol.
The Montreal Expos joined the National League in 1969, along with the San Diego Padres. After a decade of losses, the team became a winner in the early 1980s, winning their only division championship in the strike-shortened split season of 1981. That team lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 in the National League Championship Series. After several mediocre years in the late 1980s, the team rebounded in the early 1990s. In 1994, the Expos, led by a talented group of players including Larry Walker, Moisés Alou, Marquis Grissom and Pedro Martínez, had the best record in the major leagues before the 1994 Major League Baseball strike forced the cancellation of the remainder of the season. After the disappointment of 1994, the Expos began to lose players, money and fans. Ownership squabbles, the decimated fan base, a difficulty in selling broadcasting rights, and numerous other issues led to the team being bought by MLB in 2002.
Numerous professional baseball teams have called Washington home. The Washington Senators, a founding member of the American League, played in the nation's capital from 1901 to 1960. These Senators were founded and owned by Clark Griffith and played in Griffith Stadium. With notable stars including Walter Johnson and Joe Cronin, the Senators won the 1924 World Series and pennants in 1925 and 1933, but were more often unsuccessful and moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season. A second Washington Senators (1961-1971) had a winning record only once in their 11 years, though bright spots, such as slugger Frank Howard, earned the love of fans. The second Senators moved to Texas for the 1972 season, and Washington spent the next 33 years without a baseball team.
After several years in a holding pattern, MLB began actively looking for a relocation site for the Expos. Some of the choices included Oklahoma City; Washington, D.C.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Northern Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; New Jersey; and Charlotte, North Carolina. In the decision-making process, Commissioner Bud Selig added Las Vegas, Nevada to the list of potential Expos homes.
On September 29, 2004, MLB officially announced that the Expos would move to Washington, D.C. in 2005. The move was approved by the owners of the other teams in a 28–1 vote on December 3 (Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos cast the sole dissenting vote). In addition, on November 15, 2004, a lawsuit by the former team owners against MLB and former majority owner Jeffrey Loria was struck down by arbitrators, ending legal moves to keep the Expos in Montreal.
Although there was some sentiment to revive the name Senators, political considerations factored into the choice of Nationals, a revival of the first American League franchise's "official" nickname used from 1905 to 1956. Politicians in the District of Columbia objected to the name Senators because the District of Columbia does not have voting representation in Congress. Another reason was the Texas Rangers (the second Washington Senators team) still owned the rights to the "Senators" name.
The move was announced despite opposition from Peter Angelos, owner of the nearby Baltimore Orioles. Since 1972, the Orioles had been the only MLB franchise in the Baltimore-Washington area, which he considered a single market in spite of vastly different cultures and populations in the two cities. Angelos contended that the Orioles would suffer financially if another team were allowed to enter the market. Critics objected that the Orioles and the Washington Senators had shared the market successfully from 1954 through 1971. This reasoning disturbed many in Washington who recalled that it was the Griffith family, owners of the Washington Senators, who allowed the St. Louis Browns to move to Baltimore in 1954 in the first place.
On March 31, 2005, Angelos and Major League Baseball struck a deal to protect the Orioles against any financial harm the Nationals might present.
Under the terms of the deal, television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise, who formed a new network (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) to produce and distribute the games for both franchises on both local affiliates and cable/satellite systems. MASN was not, however, immediately available on all cable providers, adding to the frustration of Nationals fans. In fact, most in the DC area missed almost the entirety of the Nationals first two seasons. The deal with Angelos makes the Nationals the only major league baseball team which does not own their own broadcast rights.
The team's relocation to Washington was contingent on a financing plan for the Nationals' new stadium — this plan quickly became the subject of much debate on the D.C. Council.
Three Council members who supported Mayor Anthony Williams's plan were ousted in September 2004's Democratic party primary. In addition, an opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post during the peak of the controversy found that approximately two-thirds of District residents opposed the mayor's stadium plan.
Much of the controversy centered on the fact that the city would be helping finance a $581 million stadium without state or county support, despite the fact that a large portion of the team's fan base would be drawn from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs. (The District of Columbia is not part of any state or county; the city is administered as a territory directly by the United States federal government, with the city council serving as the territorial legislature.)
During December 2004, the move to Washington itself was called into doubt when the D.C. Council sought to change details of the stadium's financing. When the Council voted on December 14 to require 50 percent private financing for any new stadium, MLB ceased promotional activities for the Nationals and announced that they would consider looking for a new market.
Eventually, the council passed an amended plan on December 21, 2004 that proved slightly more financially favorable to the city, while remaining acceptable to MLB. Mayor Williams signed the stadium financing package on December 30.
During the 2005 season, a private financing plan for construction of the stadium was negotiated between the city and a syndicate of bankers led by Deutsche Bank. The negotiations of the details ran into another problem in November 2005. The bankers requested a letter of credit or other financial guarantee of $24 million US, $6 million for each of four years, ensuring payment of lease revenues against various risks including poor attendance and terrorism. The city requested that Major League Baseball provide this guarantee, which they were unwilling to do.
On December 22, 2005, the Post reported that Major League Baseball had specifically instructed prospective owners not to offer to pay cost overruns on the stadium if they were selected as the owners. Bidders were also told not to communicate with the press about these issues.
In February 2006, the DC City Council imposed a $611 million cap on the stadium.
Finally, on March 5, Major League Baseball signed a lease for a new ballpark, agreeing to the city's $611 million cap. MLB also agreed to contribute $20 million toward the cost of the stadium, although it did not agree to cover stadium overruns. Further, MLB added the condition that excess ballpark tax revenue earmarked for debt service for the bonds to be available for cost overruns. Two days later, on March 7 the DC City Council, by a vote of 9 to 4, approved a construction contract for a state-of-the-art stadium with a contemporary glass-and-stone facade, seats for 41,000 fans and a view of the U.S. Capitol, and affirmed its demand that public spending on the project be limited to $611 million. The votes were the final actions needed to satisfy the terms of the deal struck in September 2004, paving the way for the sale of the team.
Major League Baseball had agreed at the time that the franchise was moved to Washington, DC, to sell the team to an owner or ownership syndicate. Several dates for sale of the team were set and missed due to the legal wrangling regarding the building of the stadium. The delay was harshly criticized by city residents and leaders as reported in the Washington Post.
Selecting from a finalized group of three potential ownership syndicates, Major League Baseball announced in July 2006 that it had chosen the Lerner Enterprises group, led by billionaire real-estate developer Theodore N. Lerner. The final sale price of the team was $450 million and the transfer of ownership was completed July 24, 2006. In late September 2006, Comcast finally agreed to broadcast the Nationals games.
Due to the history of Washington franchises (See Washington Senators), there are doubts about whether Washington will actually be a better market for a major league team than Montreal in the long term. Major League Baseball does not express such doubts, and proponents of the move argue that the failure of previous franchises has more to do with poor business decisions and financial management on the part of their owners than with any lack of popular support in the region itself.
Writers in The Economist have pointed out that Washington may be less suited than some other cities to support baseball because it is primarily an African-American city (59%), and that African-Americans generally support baseball less than whites. Past Washington Senators teams have blamed poor attendance partially on lack of attendance by African-Americans. Washington has larger suburbs than it did in the '60s, so some analysts believe this will be a less important factor than in the past. Still, both versions of the Senators only finished in the first half of the American League in attendance in 9 out of 71 seasons; the worst percentage of any team in Major League Baseball history that played for more than two seasons, including the Expos. The only season the Senators finished with more than one million in attendance was 1946.
Though partially a product of the team's surprising 2005 first half showing, the Nationals' midseason attendance totals exceeded the Expos' 2004 total attendance. The final attendance for the 2005 season was 2,731,993; the 2005 total in Washington, D.C. exceeded the previous three seasons in Montreal combined (2002-2004) and was 11th in MLB. Nevertheless, Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf - MLB's point-man on the Nationals - later expressed disappointment in the first season's attendance, noting that it compared unfavorably with the first seasons of recent expansion teams. The counterargument to Mr. Reinsdorf is that the Nationals did not have a good local radio contract (broadcasting on a station with a weak signal which could not be heard in most of the region), did not have a good local TV contract (most cable users did not have access to the games), and spent little or no money on advertising. Another contributing factor may have been the aging RFK Stadium itself, and its lack of quality concessions. Attendance numbers dipped considerably in the 2006 season to 2,153,150 total and 26,582 per game, which was well below the MLB-average of 31,381 fans per game. The team also finished last in their division, which probably contributed to the poor attendance.
In the 2006 annual estimates made by Forbes Magazine, the Nationals were the 6th most valuable franchise in Major League Baseball at $440 million. That number had dropped to 10th most valuable in 2007.
* On April 4, 2005, Brad Wilkerson (after being the last player to ever wear a Montreal Expo jersey) had the honor of being the first batter for the Washington Nationals and he promptly responded with the first hit in the new team's history. Nevertheless, Kenny Lofton hit a three-run homer and Jon Lieber pitched 5 2/3 effective innings, leading the home team Philadelphia Phillies to an 8-4 victory over the new Nationals at Citizens Bank Park. (Lieber was credited with the win for the Phillies and would also score a win for Philadelphia in the last game of the 2005 Nationals season.) Outfielder Terrmel Sledge hit the Nats' first home run in the April 4 contest.
* On April 6, 2005, the Washington Nationals recorded their first-ever regular season win by beating the Phillies, 7-3. The win came in their second game of the season and was highlighted by Wilkerson's hit for the cycle.
* On April 14, 2005, the Washington Nationals won their first regular season home game at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C, by a score of 5-3 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. President George W. Bush kept up a tradition of sitting U.S. Presidents by throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day in Washington, exactly 95 years after William Howard Taft started the tradition at Griffith Stadium. There were 45,596 fans in attendance, including former Senators players and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Liván Hernández threw eight shutout innings, and Vinny Castilla was denied the chance to hit for the cycle when Diamondback reliever Lance Cormier hit him with a pitch in the bottom of the eighth; Castilla needed only a single to complete the cycle. Chad Cordero recorded the save for Washington.
* On August 4, 2005, Brad Wilkerson became the first Washington Nationals player to ever hit a grand slam, against then Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher, Duaner Sanchez. The Nationals won the game 7-0, on a four-hit complete game shutout by John Patterson.
* During his August-September callup, Ryan Zimmerman recorded 23 hits in 58 at bats. He thus became the first member of the Washington Nationals to complete the season with a batting average of at least .300 in at least 50 at bats.
* The Nationals led all National League teams in interleague play in 2005, recording 12 wins.
* At the halfway mark of the season, the Nationals were in first place in the National League East division, with a record of 50-31.
* On Father's Day, June 18, 2006, the paid attendance was 45,157, the second-largest ever to see a single baseball game in the history of RFK stadium. In that game, the Nationals beat the New York Yankees 3-2 on a two-run walk-off home run by rookie Ryan Zimmerman. A 1962 doubleheader drew more spectators, as did the Nationals' first-ever home game with Arizona.
* September 2, 2006, the Nationals rally from three runs down in the first game and from five runs down in the second game to take a day-night doubleheader sweep from the Arizona Diamondbacks, the first day-night doubleheader in Washington Nationals history.
* On Labor Day, September 4, 2006 Ramon Ortiz takes a no-hitter into the ninth inning vs. the St. Louis Cardinals, yet gives up a single to Aaron Miles on his 2nd pitch in the 9th to break up his no-hitter. Then he gave up a home run to Albert Pujols, which ended his chance to get his second ever career shutout. Ortiz himself also hit a home run in the 8th inning into the bullpen beyond the left-field fence at RFK. The Nationals won 5-2.
* September 16, 2006, Alfonso Soriano becomes the fourth player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season when he steals his 40th base in the first inning of a game vs. the Milwaukee Brewers. The other three are José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics in 1988, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants in 1996, and Alex Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners in 1998. Soriano follows that feat on September 22 by hitting his 40th double vs. the New York Mets, becoming the first member of the "40-40 Club" to also hit 40 doubles in the same season.
* On April 17, 2007, one day after the shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech where 33 faculty and students were murdered in the largest mass shooting in US history, the Nationals wore Virginia Tech baseball hats as they hosted the Atlanta Braves. One of these hats was sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to be displayed.
* On May 12, 2007, the Nationals hosted the Florida Marlins. Tied 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth Marlins pitcher Jorge Julio faced Ryan Zimmerman with the bases loaded and two outs. Zimmerman hit the 2-2 pitch over the right-center field wall for the walk-off grand slam. Also during this game, right fielder Austin Kearns hit the Nationals' first inside-the-park home run. The game is further notable for ending at 1:42AM after two separate extended rain delays.
* On August 7, 2007, Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik allowed Barry Bonds' 756th career home run, giving him first place on the career home run list. However, the Nationals won the game 8-6.
* On September 23, 2007, the Nationals played their final game at RFK, a 5-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
* On March 30, 2008, the Nationals held the grand opening of their new ballpark, Nationals Park, with a rare one game series against the Atlanta Braves. Continuing the tradition, President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Nationals manager Manny Acta. The Nationals beat the Braves in dramatic fashion when, with two out in the bottom of the 9th inning, Ryan Zimmerman hit a solo walk-off home run. This gave the Nationals a 3-2 victory. For the record, the first hit was recorded by Cristian Guzman, the first RBI was recorded by Nick Johnson, the first run scored was recorded by Cristian Guzman, the first home run was recorded by the Braves' Chipper Jones, and the first starting pitchers were Odalis Perez for the Nationals and Tim Hudson for the Braves. President Bush was in the ESPN television booth at the time of Jones' homer and was the one who called it.
When Ted Lerner took over the club in mid-2006, he hired Stan Kasten as team president. Kasten was widely known as the architect of the Atlanta Braves before and during their run of 14 consecutive National League Eastern Division titles. Kasten was also the general manager or president of many other Atlanta-area sports teams, such as the Atlanta Thrashers. "The Plan," as it became known, was a long-range rebuilding and restructuring of the team from the ground up. This plan included investing in the farm system and draft picks, and having a suitable team to go along with their new stadium.
At the end of the 2006 season, the Nationals did not re-sign free agent and star OF Alfonso Soriano. Soriano signed a $136 million contract with the Cubs, and Washington received two draft picks in return. OF Jose Guillen was also allowed to depart via free agency, and another high draft pick was obtained. Another high priced player, 2B/DH Jose Vidro, was traded to the Seattle Mariners for prospects OF Chris Snelling and RHP Emiliano Fruto. In mid-2006, the Nationals received OF Austin Kearns, 2B/SS Felipe Lopez, and RHP Ryan Wagner from the Reds, giving up LHP Gary Majewski, LHP Bill Bray, SS Royce Clayton, 2B Brendan Harris and RHP Daryl Thompson. In August they traded RHP Liván Hernández to the Arizona Diamondbacks for prospects LHP Matt Chico and RHP Garrett Mock. Other players traded or let go from the 2005 season were OF Preston Wilson, RHP Hector Carrasco, IF Jamey Carroll, and OF Terrmel Sledge. The team also acquired pitching prospects Luis Atilano from Atlanta, Shairon Martis from San Francisco and Jhonny Nunez from the Dodgers. In 2006, they had two first-round draft picks, OF Chris Marrero, and RHP Colten Williams, and signed them both to developmental contracts. The Nationals also signed a 16-year-old Dominican shortstop, Esmailyn Gonzalez, for $1.4 million.
