19 Facts About Griffith Stadium

Griffith Stadium stood in Washington, DC, from 1911 to 1965, between Georgia Avenue and 5th Street, and between W Street and Florida Avenue NW.

Construction of Griffith Stadium continued while the Senators were on the road, and was not completed until July 24,1911.

Griffith Stadium was laid out at an angle within its block in the Washington street grid.

Clark Griffith took advantage of this trend by making small improvements in the stadium in 1920 and 1921.

When FDR returned to Washington in 1933 as president, Griffith Stadium visited the White House early every season to give Roosevelt season passes; he constructed a special ramp at the ballpark that accommodated the president's special mobility needs after his bout with polio in 1921.

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In 1942, Griffith Stadium urged Roosevelt to keep baseball going during the war, and took credit for doing so after Roosevelt's initial "Green Light letter", which allowed baseball to continue.

Griffith Stadium hosted numerous football events before the Redskins moved there in 1937.

One major reason for the stadium's early-1920s expansion was that Clark Griffith had envisioned the stadium hosting the annual Army–Navy Game, played every December.

Griffith Stadium was the location of 1940 and 1942 NFL Championship Games.

Griffith Stadium was home to many events other than baseball and football.

Griffith Stadium was the home to public school events, church revivals, public meetings, and annual ROTC drill competitions.

Gospel's first superstar, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was married in Griffith Stadium in 1951 - in what was a legally binding PR stunt - in front of some 20,000 paying guests.

Griffith Stadium was located in LeDroit Park, a historically black area of Washington since the Civil War.

Griffith Stadium was not officially segregated, although an unofficial policy early after the 1920s expansion was that blacks sat in the right field pavilion.

However, a conflict was avoided after these men came upon "a group of two thousand armed black men", who had been prepared and gotten their weapons at Griffith Stadium, chosen as a meeting place because of its landmark status in the community.

Attendance may not have been the sole reason Griffith Stadium wanted to move, however; in a speech to Minnesota businessmen in the 1970s, Griffith Stadium said, "You only have 15,000 blacks here".

However, in 1962, the Senators moved to the new DC Griffith Stadium, joining the Redskins, who had moved there a year before.

The final baseball game at Griffith Stadium was played on September 21,1961, before a crowd of only 1,498 fans.

Griffith Stadium now had no tenants, and sat empty for years, deteriorating, with the field taking on the appearance of a prairie.