Washington's past meets present

ARLINGTON, Texas — Before the Washington Nationals, there were the Washington Senators. They left for Texas after the 1971 season — and now, the team that abandoned the nation's capital is set to play the new club in town.

The Nationals are leading the NL East at 39-27 and have drawn more than 1 million fans to home games. The success and support were missing when owner Bob Short moved those old Senators.

"They never had a team that played consistent winning baseball, and you couldn't compare the crowds or enthusiasm with what the people are pouring out right now," Nationals manager Frank Robinson said. "We have been embraced from day one because the people waited 34 years to get a team back."

Because the interleague series between the teams that starts Friday night will be played in Texas, instead of Washington's RFK Stadium, there isn't any sense of a grudge match, or even a budding rivalry. The Nationals are, after all, last year's Montreal Expos and not the old Rangers.

"I'd have a lot more in the way of nostalgia and memories if we were going there to play because I've never been back to that stadium since I played there," said Tom Grieve, a first-round draft pick of the Washington Senators who moved with the team to Texas.

Grieve went on to become the Rangers' general manager and now is one of the team's broadcasters.

Grieve made his major league debut with the Senators in the final three months of 1971, and remembers it was "a lousy team." Even with Ted Williams as the manager and Frank Howard in the lineup, the Senators weren't winning and fans weren't showing up.

So Short took the team away, moving the Senators to a quickly renovated minor league stadium in Texas, about halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth.

"Their ballclub had just gone downhill so far that it was a logical move to take advantage of a market like ours," said Tom Vandergriff, who as Arlington mayor back then helped persuade Short to move. "Washington is a different world now. Back in that era, the picture wasn't good at all, and it was with a lot of joy on our part that we gained our objective."

It wasn't the first time that Washington lost a team. The original Senators had become the Minnesota Twins after the 1960 season. Washington was then awarded an expansion franchise for 1961.

Getting a major league baseball team was part of the development plan Vandergriff envisioned. The Six Flags amusement park already was there, alongside an interstate highway, and Turnpike Stadium was right next door. It was replaced a decade ago by The Ballpark in Arlington and the Dallas Cowboys will soon be building their stadium nearby.