Lost Capitol Hill: The First Congressional Baseball Game

With baseball season upon us, and the Nationals due to take to the field for their first Spring Training game in less than a week, it seems appropriate to look back at some baseball history on the Hill, starting with a game played in 1909, which started a decades-long tradition. In this case, the game may not have been played on the Hill, as it occurred in a park just north of Florida Avenue, but the players were most certainly denizens of the Hill.

It was a hot day in mid-July 1909. After battling it out on the stump, at the ballot box, and in the halls of Congress, it was time for a final, decisive fight. Republicans vs. Democrats: who would be the victor and who the vanquished?  It would all come down to 18 players, seven innings, 21 outs.

The game took place in American League park, which had been used by the Washington Senators in their first two years of existence, during the 1901 and 1902 seasons, before they had moved to Griffith Stadium in time for the 1903 season.

It was a fairly motley crew that showed up at the ballpark that day, with some wearing proper baseball uniforms, while others wore whatever seemed appropriate, including a young Nicholas Longworth (who had just begun his third term in office) in a golfing suit, while on the Democratic side, their captain, Eugene Kinkead from New Jersey, sported a Panama hat. Even more absurd was the picture presented by James T. Heflin, Democrat from Alabama. “Cotton Tom” as he was generally known, hardly had the physique of a baseball player. The Washington Times described him as ‘tall and stout,’ attributes that are not necessarily negative, but added that he was ‘sebaceous,’ with the implication that his fat was hardly helping him in his play. Instead, he had a dog with him, and together they “covered left field for his party in a lamentable, sad, and sorrowful style.” The report continues: “he and the dog went on the principle that they could catch every fly and stop every grounder by simply staring the speeding ball out of countenance.”

In spite of Heflin’s play, the game – which was tied at two after the first inning – decisively tilted towards his team in the top of the second inning, with the Democrats scoring 10 runs. The score remained lopsided for the next few innings, until the Republicans finally managed to unlimber their bats, sending 10 of their own over the plate in the bottom of the 5^th inning, reducing the Democrats’ margin to just a single run. Unfortunately for the GOP, the Democrats scored 5 and 7 runs in the last two innings, and won the game handily: 26 to 16.

Nicholas Longworth (at bat) plays in the 1911 Congressional Baseball game (LOC)

Standouts in the game were Joseph O’Connell from Massachusetts, who went 5 for 6 for the Democrats, in spite of playing “in a suit that he stole from a circus clown,” while on the other side Albert Dawson of Iowa went 3 for 4. That O’Connell should have done well was unsurprising: he had been a football player during his time at Boston University. More surprising was the play of John Tener, who was actually a retired baseball player and a prime mover behind the game in the first place. He went only 2 for 6 while playing shortstop. In general, the quality of play was relatively low, with the players, when attempting to catch a ball “held up their hands as if they expected some one to place in them very gently a salary check or a piece of pie.”

One of the spectators that day was  Joseph “Uncle Joe” Cannon, famously long-serving Republican member of the House, and Speaker of the House for the past five years. Cannon’s iron-fisted control of the body was mocked in the Associated Press report of the game, writing that he was “powerless to call the minority to order or bring in a special rule shutting off base hits.” Cannon eventually left, with the mocking cry of “Cotton Tom” Heflin ringing in his ear: “Hurrah for the Democratic party!”

The Washington Times report from the day after the game spends much of its time making fun of the physical ailments that plagued the congressmen the next day, claiming that the “list of cripples numbers twenty,” which was the total number of players: Heflin and one other on the Democratic side were replaced during the course of the game, while the Republicans kept their original nine in their original positions

Regardless of the kvetching of the players, the congressional game has become a regular fixture of the Congressional calendar. In spite of several attempts to curtail it, including a four-year hiatus from 1957-1961 after Speaker Sam Rayburn declared it hazardous to the health of the players, it has been a yearly event since 1962, and today raises a tidy sum for local charities.

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