Griffith Stadium Archives - All Mississippi Baseball

way, way back

Two Mississippians were on the field the last time there was a World Series game in Washington, D.C. They wore flannel uniforms and gloves that looked like leather oven mitts. Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. It was 86 years ago. Nationals Park will play host next week to a Series game, or two or three, marking the first time the nation’s capital will have hosted a Fall Classic contest since way, way back in 1933. On Oct. 7 of that year, at Griffith Stadium, the Washington Senators (sometimes called the Nationals) lost Game 5 – and the series – to the New York Giants 4-3 on a 10th-inning homer by Mel Ott. Ellisville native Buddy Myer manned second base and batted leadoff for the Senators, going 0-for-5. Starkville native Hughie Critz played second and hit second for the Giants, also putting up an 0-for-5. There have been many twists and turns in Washington’s baseball history since. That Senators franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961 – the Twins have made three Series appearances — and was replaced by an expansion Senators franchise, which later moved to Texas, where, as the Rangers, the team has made two Series appearances. The current Nationals club arrived in Washington in 2005 from Montreal, a 1969 expansion club which never made the Series. Finally, after an 86-year wait, Washington gets to host the World Series again. As fate would have it, there is a second baseman from Mississippi — Fulton’s Brian Dozier – on the 2019 Washington club.

totally random

Someone asked recently about details from the career of Jim Joe Edwards, a little-known pitcher from Banner who played in the majors in the 1920s. There is a fantastic website, baseball-almanac.com, that can take you at the click of a button to a box score from the debut of any MLB player. With a little imagination, you’re almost there for Edwards’ first game. It’s May 14, 1922, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. The 27-year-old Edwards, a 6-foot-2 left-hander, starts for Cleveland against a Senators lineup that includes some familiar names: Donie Bush, Bucky Harris, Sam Rice, Joe Judge, Goose Goslin and Roger Peckinpaugh. Taking the field behind Edwards are the likes of Joe “Doc” Evans (a Meridian native), Tris Speaker, Stuffy McInnis, Joe Sewell and Bill Wambsganss. Edwards gives up a couple of runs in the second inning and leaves after five, trailing 4-0. He allowed nine hits and a walk and took the loss in a 4-3 game. Edwards, a Mississippi College alum, went on to have a decent career, going 26-37 with a 4.37 ERA over six seasons in the big leagues. He won 10 games for the Indians in 1923 and pitched his last game in 1928 for Cincinnati. He died 50 years ago this month. P.S. Came across a Howard Farmer baseball card (Donruss 1992) in one of those odd-ball assortment packages. Remember him? Farmer was a star at Jackson State (and at Utica Junior College before that) and a promising prospect in the minors whose brief fling in the big leagues didn’t go so well. Farmer, a seventh-round draftee in 1987 by Montreal, pitched in six games for the 1990 Expos and went 0-3 with a 7.04 ERA. He never got another shot, though his minor league numbers were good: 59-43, 3.33 ERA. He was out of the game by 1996.