May 30
1912 – Floundering with a 17-21 record, the Senators purchase the contract of 1B Chick Gandil from Montreal of the International League. With Manager Griffith immediately placing Gandil in the lineup, the Sens reel off 17 straight wins to rise from 6th to 2nd place.
1913 – Harry Hooper of Boston leads off both ends of a Memorial Day doubleheader in D.C. with home runs. Washington takes game one, 4-3, while Hooper’s home run is the difference of game two, a 1-0 loss for Washington.
1927 – After being sidelined with a broken foot, the Big Train makes his inaugural appearance of the year. Johnson fires his 110th and final, career shutout as Washington defeats the Red Sox, 3-0. Behind the pitching of Bump Hadley in the second game, the hometown Senators steamroll the Sox, 13-5.
1934 – In a noteworthy doubleheader, the Sens split a pair with New York. Nats P Earl Whitehill sees his no hit bid broken by a 9th inning single by the Yanks’ Ben Chapman. Nonetheless, Whitehill and Washington edge Lefty Gomez and the Yanks, 1-0. The Yankees score in the top of the 11th in the nite-cap to give spitballer, Burleigh Grimes, his 269th and final victory of his career, 5-4.
1952 – Eddie Yost‘s 3-run homer provides the win for the Senators, 5-2 in Boston. The Sox even the twin-bill with a 5-3 victory, as Boston’s Mel Parnell wins his 17th straight decision over the Sens.
1954 – Washington P Mickey McDermott shuts down the A’s, 6-0, in the front end of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. The Sens miss a golden opportunity for the sweep when the A’s Ed McGhee hits a pinch hit, bases loaded double in the bottom of the ninth to give the Senators a 6-5 loss.
1956 – Camilo Pascual is the victim of a legendary Yankee Stadium home run by Mickey Mantle. Leading off the bottom of the 5th, Mantle’s blast comes within inches of being hit out of the stadium. According to legend, the ball was still rising when it struck the upper stand facade in right field, approximately 396 feet from home plate. Had the ball not struck the facade, it would have been the first and, so far, only home run ever hit out of Yankee Stadium. Mantle’s homer put the New Yorkers in the lead for good as the Yanks whip the Senators 12-5. Mantle also homers off Pedro Ramos in game one, a 3 run shot, as the Yanks sneak by the Sens, 4-3.
1961 – The Sens stop their expansion cousins, the Angels, 5-1 at Griffith. Ed Hobaugh of Washington strikes out 8 in a 6 hit complete game effort.
1964 – Cleveland’s Leon “Daddy Wags” Wagner collects 5 hits in 5 plate appearances as the Indians bulldoze the Nats, 10-2 in RFK.
1968 – Mantle is 5-for-5, with 2 homers and 5 RBI, in an opening game, 13-4 Yanks cakewalk. Washington bounces back to earn the split with a 6-2 victory behind Camilo Pasqual and Darold Knowles.
