Philly Front Office

Did you know that since 1955, there have been 5 forfeits in Major League Baseball? For the most part, since they stopped calling games due to darkness and having enough players is never a problem, forfeits only happen in the most outrageous of circumstances. They don’t happen very often and there haven’t been any in a while, so the plan is to write about all of them this baseball season during my Series Previews.

Monday, March 30 at 6:40p – Taijuan Walker vs Foster GriffIn (L)
Tuesday, March 31 at 6:40p – Andrew Painter vs TBA
Wednesday, April 1 at 1:05p – Cristopher Sanchez vs Cade Cavalli (R)

Citizen’s Bank Park – Philadelphia, PA

For the first one, I couldn’t decide whether to include it under the Rangers or the Nationals because on September 30, 1971 there was a forfeit by the Washington Baseball Team. No no, this wasn’t the precursor to the Washington football naming shenanigans that would occur 50 years later. Instead, we are talking about the Washington Senators playing their final game in Washington before moving to Arlington, Texas to become the Rangers. They lost the game despite scoring 7 runs to the Yankees’ 5.

NL East Preview ’26: Washington Nationals

To set the scene, the Senators had only been in Washington for 10 years at the time despite being there for 60 years already. Huh? You read that right; the original Washington Senators, having been established in 1901, moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1960. MLB expanded the next year with a new team in LA (the Angels) and a new old team in Washington, the new Senators.

Despite baseball being back like it had never left, the on-field product was rarely anything to see. It was around this time that the phrase “Washington: first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League” was coined. Fans didn’t come, the team made a bunch of lousy bets, and ownership found itself in debt. With his lease almost up at RFK Stadium, owner Bob Short wanted to either sell the team or move it. On September 21, 1971, his fellow owners approved Short to move the team to Texas for the next season. Needless to say, the timing was bad since the season still had a few games left.

The team’s last game in Washington was to be played on September 30th against the New York Yankees. RFK Stadium was a football venue and fit around 60k people. This created a regularly cavernous ambience considering the Senators regularly only took in between 10k and 20k fans. That day though, 10k extra non-customers stormed the gate to get in.

MLB Season Predictions ’26

With 2 outs in the top of the 9th with the Senators up 7-5, one fan ran on to the field and literally stole the first base bag. The rest of the fans thought this was a great idea and stormed the field for souvenirs of their own. Order was never restored and Washington forfeited the game.

As a funny side note, the pitcher who never got to throw the final pitch for the franchise in Washington, Joe Grzenda, kept the ball. When the Nationals would return to Washington 33 years later, Grzenda brought the ball and handed it to President George W. Bush who threw it as the ceremonial first pitch for the new team that was now back at RFK Stadium.

Idea for the Story: Big Hair and Plastic Grass by Dan Epstein

Notes: SABR