Washington Senators Forum

From the Baseball Almanac:  

"Their original team, the Washington Senators, played in the National League until 1899. Then they became an American League team in 1901, called by the new ownership the Nationals so as not to have them confused with the old Senators.

But fans kept calling them the Senators, while the team kept calling itself the Nationals, and everybody else nicknamed the team the "NATS," although nobody was sure whether that was short for NATionals or SeNATors. It wasn't until 50 years later the team began officially calling itself what the fans had been calling it all along.

In the early days of baseball, teams didn't have names. They were officially referred to by their city and league.  The Washington team of the National league.  The team "names" were nicknames coined and used by fans and sportswriters. Some teams had numerous nicknames (fans can never agree sometimes) all used at the same time. Eventually teams started adopting their nicknames, or chose one nickname, as "official".

This is the link on this site that tells you howmany teams are cataloged for each sport.

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Stats.cfm?MODE=Teams&Report=1

as a DC sports fan and long time Senators fan I tend to lump the Teams that became the Twins (Senators 1.0) and the Rangers (Senators 2.0) into one team. Yes I shouldn't but I do. The teams before then the 1800s one and the short lived US Baseball League teams have few if any cards for them so as far as the hobby is concerned I probably won't see any of those in my collection, but as far as the History of DC baseball they are still right along in there as well as the Negro League Homestead Grays (which shared DC and Pittsburgh as their "home" city).

Technically Cleveland Browns are the same sort of thing as there is the Original team that moved (was stolen) to become the Baltimore Ravens and the "New" Browns that are the current team. I'm sure there are some Cleveland fans that hate the Ravens and also disown the current team. Not sure how many but there are probably more fans that cheer for the current Browns and appreciate the history of the original Browns team up until 1997 or whenever it was they moved to B'More.

So Yeah DC Baseball is a weird sports enigma paradox.

I maintain that a city change should include a mandatory nickname change. Good chance the city will get another team back later. The old name should be available to them, ala Cleveland Browns, and (after a delay) Charlotte Hornets.  Because you will not convince me that the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 1955 World Series.  In my mind, and in my collection, the Brooklyn Dodgers aren't the same team as the Los Angeles Dodgers. And the current Oakland Raiders are the same as the old Oakland Raiders, but not L.A., nor Las Vegas.  It's about the city and the fans, not ownership.  The Ravens should have been the Colts.  Indianapolis should have been the [anything but Colts].  My unwanted two cents.

I could agree with that.  I tend to associate the Kansas City Athletics with the Kansas City Royals, rather than with the Oakland A's.  I also tend to associate the Seattle Pilots with the Seattle Mariners rather than with the Milwaukee Brewers. 

Alright! Alright! Who's the wiseguy who poked this bear?......   Oh, yeah. Ummm, never mind.

The 1956 Topps Washington "Senators" cards all have the Nationals on the front and bank of every card.  They are all linked to the Senators.    The Killebrew has a variation due to the white stock on the back of one card.   The Killebrew cards, like all the others, have Nationals on front and back.  However only one is linked to the Senators and the other to the Nationals.   Go figure.

This seems an appropriate time and place to congratulate Ivan Rodriguez (2 seasons with the Nationals) and Tim Raines (who had literally never set foot in DC at all until he appeared for the ceremony) on their induction into the Washington Nationals Hall of Fame. Which includes various brands of Senators and Expos.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh....

v3

With respect to the Cleveland Browns, the situation was unique.  When a team moves, they bring the nickname, the colors, the history with it.  The team is a continuation of the original franchise with a new name.  If I recall correctly (I should look this up to be more exact), the Browns sued for the rights to the Browns name and history and won.  Therefore, the timeline of the current franchise is a team that existed through I think 95.  Then had a three year "vacation" and restarted in 99.  The team name, colors, and most importantly, history, belongs to the Cleveland Browns.  The Ravens wer for historical purposes considered an expansion team, but not fitting the definition of an expansion team for the purposes of fees and an expansion draft.

To try to illustrate this, if you look at the all time Ravens record books, you will not see the names Otto Graham, Ozzie Newsone, Bernie Kosar, etc.  Those are all in the Cleveland Browns record books.  The Ravens ALL TIME leaders in all stat categories are all very recent players.  This is not the case if you looked at, say, the Tennesee Titans, who still have Warren Moon, Earl Campbell, etc. all over their record books.

A normal person would read this and say, who cares, how useless.  I have a feeling though a lot on this site will appreciate the slight difference.  I am assuming there is a lot of stat geeks like me on the site and this might help explain some things you see in the record books.  If I am right, the Browns are the only franchise in the history of sports where this is the case.