Having lost their first game to the White Sox on Opening Day, April 10, 1961, the expansion Senators were idle for two days due to inclement weather. By Friday evening, April 14, the rain moved on, and a 27-year-old rookie pitcher walked to the mound to start the opener of a three-game series against the Cleveland Indians at Griffith Stadium. Joe Fred McClain from Johnson City, Tennessee was given the task of pitching the new Washington Senators to the first win in franchise history in front of 10,126 paying customers.
McClain recalled his first game. “I was very nervous, because I’d never played before that many people. You didn’t see that kind of a crowd in the minor leagues.” The first-time starter not only held the powerful Cleveland lineup hitless through the first four innings, he also drove in the game’s first run with a two-base hit in the third inning.
Catcher Pete Daley walked to open the bottom of the third, and Senators manager Mickey Vernon asked his pitcher, “Can you hit?” Joe replied, “You’d better believe I can hit!”
Vernon said, “O.K. You’ve got one swing. We’ll hit and run on the first pitch, then bunt him over.” The pitcher delivered in a big way.
“I got a line-drive double to right-center field and Pete scored. I had a double with an RBI, batting 1.000, and off Gary Bell to boot! I think that’s what I remember most about [that game].” The Senators added a run in the sixth inning on a single by second baseman Danny O’Connell
McClain faced his first real test when Jim Piersall led off the seventh inning with a triple. No problem. McClain showed the poise of a veteran by retiring Willie Kirkland on a foul popup, Woodie Held on an infield popup and Vic Power on a ground-out. However, the Indians ruined the shutout by scoring two runs in the eighth, and manager Vernon paid a visit to the mound to check on his right-hander.
“He asked me something like, ‘Do you feel all right? Do you think you can get them out? Do you need any relief?’ I said, ‘I’d like to try and get them out myself. I think I have enough left.’ And as it turned out, I did. He let me start the ninth, and I think I got them out, 1-2-3.”
McClain had posted the first win in expansion Senators history, and a week later, he beat the Twins, 5-3 in the first major league game played in Minnesota. Not only that, he beat the Twins again on May 26, when the old Senators paid their first visit to Griffith Stadium since the franchise had relocated.
“I don’t know what it was, he recalled. “ [The Twins] had some pretty good ballplayers on that team. I seemed like I just pitched well against them.”
McClain finished the first half of the season with a record of 7-7 and a 3.19 ERA. After the All-Star break, he tailed off and finished his rookie year with a record of 8-18, seven complete games, two shutouts, and a respectable ERA of 3.86. Unfortunately, arm trouble plagued McClain in 1962 and he was sent back to the minors. By 1963, his baseball career was over, but no one can ever take away the fact that Johnson City’s own Joe McClain recorded the very first win in expansion Senators history on April 14, 1961.
*Jim Hartley has written three books about baseball in D.C.
