History of Washington, D.C. professional baseball

This article is about the history of professional baseball clubs in Washington, D.C. For other uses of Washington Nationals or Washington Senators, see Washington Nationals (disambiguation) or Washington Senators (disambiguation).

There have been several baseball teams that have played as the Washington Senators, including:

• an American League baseball team based in Washington, D.C. from 1901 to 1960, that moved to Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1961 and became the Minnesota Twins.
• another American League baseball team that played from 1961 to 1971, then moved to Dallas-Fort Worth for the 1972 season and became the Texas Rangers.

Note: Because the original Senators' relocation to Minnesota and the expansion Senators' arrival occurred in the same year (1961), and both had the same name, it is a very common mistake to confuse or combine the two baseball franchises. In photographs of unknown date from the 1950–1970 timeframe, the following guidelines may be helpful to identify which franchise is pictured:

• The original Senators club used dark blue as its primary color, with a thick, sans-serif, red or white block "W" on caps.

President George W. Bush throws out the ceremonial first pitch when baseball returned in 2005.

• The expansion Senators club mainly used caps with a stylized cursive "W," first in blue with a red letter (1963–1967), then in red with a white letter (1968–1971). This cap is not unlike one currently worn by the Washington Nationals. In 1961–1962, the expansion Senators wore dark blue caps with a sans-serif block "W" outlined in white, nearly identical to the caps of the original Senators save for a red button at the top of the cap.

Varying shades of the Senators' red, white and blue colors are still used by their successor teams (Minnesota and Texas), and the Washington Nationals adopted these colors with gold accents upon their 2005 move from Montreal. For their caps, the new Nats adopted a tilted version of the second Senators' cursive W logo, and used both franchises' base colors, wearing red at home and blue on the road.

19th century baseball in Washington

• Numerous major league teams played in Washington in the 19th century.
  • The National Association Washington Olympics played in 1871 and 1872.
  • The National Association Washington Nationals (NA) played in 1872.
  • The National Association Washington Blue Legs played in 1873.
  • The National Association Washington Nationals (NA) (a new incarnation) played in 1875.
  • The Union Association Washington Nationals (UA) played in 1884.
  • The American Association Washington Nationals played in 1884.
  • The National League Washington Nationals (1886–1889).
  • Washington Senators (1891–1899): the American Association Washington Statesmen of 1891 became the National League Washington Senators of 1892–1899. The American Association was incorporated into the NL after 1891 and its Washington club continued operation in the combined League.