Jeffrey Stuart
Author's posts
Apr 20
A Gamble that Payed Off
By Jeff Stuart In the summer of 1957, my mother – who did not like baseball – came home from a Senators promotional event one day with a baseball autographed by Roy Sievers. My brother Chris and I almost immediately took the ball outside and played with it.I have no idea how many hours of …
Apr 17
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
By Jeff Stuart In their inaugural 2005 season the Washington Nationals played exceptionally well for the first half of the season. At the mid-season point, after winning 9 of 10 and sweeping the Pirates at home and the Cubs in Chicago, their record stood at 51-30. They were in first place on July 4. Then …
Mar 19
The Physics of a Curveball
By Jeff Stuart “[The curveball is very difficult to throw, very difficult to control,” said Dick Bosman, former Senators’ pitcher and Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ minor league pitching coordinator. “On an average 12-man staff, you might have two guys who throw curveballs.”For a long time, physicists argued that a baseball couldn’t curve, that it was …
Mar 11
After the Fall of 1971
By Jeff Stuart “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” After the Senators final game on Sept 30, 1971, there was no home team. But there were 17 exhibition professional baseball games played at RFK Stadium between then and April 2005, when the former Montreal Expos …
Mar 07
Papa Joe – Griffith’s Loyal Scout
By Jeff Stuart At the time of Joe Cambria’s passing on September 24, 1962 at the age of 72, Washington Post Sports columnist Bob Addie called him. “the best baseball scout that ever lived.” At a birthday party for the late Clark Griffith some years earlier, Cambria told Addie, “I’ve been with this club so …
Feb 26
Del Unser: A Class Act
By Jeff Stuart After the Senators left Washington after the 1971 season, I had scant interest in baseball, though I made a few yearly trips up 1-95 to Memorial Stadium and tuned in at playoff time. The 1980 National League play-off series between the Phillies and Astros remains a personal favorite. It wasn’t because the …
Feb 23
The Man With The Big Chaw
By Jeff Stuart Rocky Bridges was almost instantly recognizable for the huge tobacco chaw inside his left cheek. Only Nellie Fox of the White Sox came close to matching that tobacco swell. Born with the first name of Everett, he got the name “Rocky” from a minor league announcer in Greenville, SC when he played …
Oct 28
At the Ballpark, Nixon was Unimpeachable
By Jeff Stuart Far from the highs and lows of a tumultuous life in politics, Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, found refuge at the ballpark. As a kid I saw the then Vice President several times walking in what passed for a concourse at Griffith Stadium. To me, his smile seemed …
Oct 15
Mikey, We Hardly Knew You
By Jeff Stuart “I can’t develop personal relationships with these guys. I gotta be able to trade ’em, send ’em down, sometimes cut them. Which is something you should learn to do, by the way. They’re professional ball players. Just be straight with them. No fluff, just facts. ‘Pete, I gotta let you go. Jack’s …
Sep 09
From 1965 to 1969, Kenny McMullen Gave the Senators a Boost
By Jeff StuartOn Jun 29, 1963; The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that they had recalled infielder Ken McMullen from Spokane to replace Don Zimmer who had recently been traded to the Washington Senators.McMullen signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers upon graduation from Oxnard High School. He was one of the last of baseball’s bonus babies.His …
