On this date in 1962, then-President John F. Kennedy was sitting in the Oval Office and thinking about baseball. With a Laotian Prince on his way to the White House for an important meeting, Kennedy thought ‘ah, to hell with it,’ called the secret service, ordered up a limousine and decided he’d go to the opening game of the Washington Senators 1962 season. Kennedy had an excuse: it was the inaugural game for the city’s new “D.C. Stadium“  (what passed for a sports “complex” in those days), a spiffy addition to D.C.’s claim to being a good baseball town. You have to wonder how Kennedy might have felt if he’d known that D.C. Stadium would one be named for his administration’s Attorney General (and his brother, Bobby), becoming Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in January of 1969. Of course, Kennedy could not have possibly known that — any more than he could have known that his own life would end at the hands of an assassin less than two years later.

Kennedy loved baseball (not as much as touch football, of course, but still . . . ) and while he was not an avid fan, he was enough of a follower of the game to ignore the Laotian prince (then cooling his heels in the opulent holding pen outside of the Oval Office) and stayed the full nine innings. It was a 4-1 Senators win. This wasn’t much of a Senators team, truth be told, as they were one of baseball’s afterthoughts: the original Senators had moved to Minneapolis at the end of 1960 (just in time to become the Harmon Killebrew powerhouse Twins) and baseball decided that since D.C. was building an “all purpose” stadium anyway (and because the powers that be were feeling guilty about not having a team in the nation’s capital), the new home of (your) Washington Redskins could also be the home of your expansion Senators.

So why was Kennedy so attracted to the Senators that he would insultingly rebuff an important visitor? The answer is simple: Kennedy loved Jimmy Piersall, the Senators starting center fielder. Piersall was a known quantity in the game — he made his name as a rookie with the Red Sox in 1952 before being shipped off for counseling for spanking a teammate’s son. He argued with everyone, incessantly, and when he was sent to Birmingham to clean up his act he climbed the roof of the grandstand to heckle the umpire. Before a game in Yankee Stadium reporters discovered him conversing with Babe Ruth’s monument. Later, after his time with the Senators ended, he celebrated hitting his 100th home run by running the bases backwards. He sprayed a water pistol on home plate after an opposing players’ home run, played air guitar on his bat, and once wore a Beetles’ wig for an at-bat.

There was always something about Jimmy that had nothing to do with his being “a character.” He battled mental illness most of his life, what was then called “mental exhaustion,” but was actually bi-polar disorder. After he entered a sanatorium in 1952 (he’d had fistfights with Billy Martin and four other teammates), Hollywood cashed in on his notoriety, making a film of his travails called “Fear Strikes Out.” He even appeared on the immensely popular game show “What’s My Line” (it’s worth watching), fielding questions from “celebrity” panel members Dorothy Kilgallen (a confidante of Kennedy), Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf and guest panelist George Smathers. “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts,” he said in his autobiography. “Who ever heard of Jimmy Piersall, until that happened?”

In truth, John Kennedy knew enough about baseball to appreciate Piersall, who was one of the game’s best defensive center fielders. He won a Gold Glove in 1958 and 1961, led the American League in doubles in 1956 and stayed in the majors for 17 years. In the wake of Opening Day of 1962, Kennedy returned to the White House and, a few weeks later, invited Piersall to visit him. A second invitation was sent out to the veteran in 2005, when the 2004 World Champion Red Sox were honored. “This is a real thrill for a poor kid from Waterbury, Connecticut,” Piersall said at the time. “I’m a 75 year old man. There aren’t many things left.”

Matt Capps pitched to David Ortiz in Anaheim on Tuesday night — it was just one-third of an inning in the Mid-Summer Classic — but that was enough for the Washington Nationals reliever to register a win, a point of pride for fans of the Anacostia Nine. Capps whiffed “Big Poppy” on five pitches, the last an up-and-in fastball (95 on the gun) that sent Ortiz back to the pines. Capps’ relief effort not only helped Phillies big man Roy Halladay out of a jam, it gave the senior circuit a chance to rally for a much-needed 3-1 triumph. Capps was thrilled to be in the record books. “It feels pretty good,” Capps said after the NL victory. “I just came in to face one hitter. The guys did a great job of putting some runs up later. It worked out well, I’m very pleased with it, excited about it.” Capps is the first Washington pitcher to notch a win in the All Star game since Dean Stone, a lefty Washington Senator, did it for the American League back in 1954.

Capps undoubtedly wishes his career will be more stellar than Stone’s: Darrah Dean Stone played in a Washington Senators’ uniform for four seasons, after being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 1949. The big (6-4, 205) southpaw was signed as an amateur, but spent his early career kicking around the minors before starting for Senators, Red Sox, Cardinals, Colt 45s, White Sox and Orioles. Stone finished his career after spending 1963 in Japan. Stone was never a particularly effective starter, except for the ’54 Senators, when his fastball and curveball finally worked in tandem, when he was 12-10 with a 3.22 ERA. Stone was a part of a staff that boasted proto-ace Bob Porterfield (22-10 in ’53) and former Bosox biggie Mickey McDermott. If Porterfield and McDermott had pitched in ’54 as they had in their previous incarnations, the Senators might have been good: but Porterfield had lost something on his fastball and McDermott was never the same pitcher he had been in Boston. That left the surprising Stone, who dazzled D.C. crowds in the first part of the season.

Neither Capps nor Stone were exactly afterthoughts in the All Star selection process, but neither of them were headliners. As Capps seemed eclipsed by the big guns of Jimenez, Johnson, Halladay and Wainwright, so too Stone was viewed as a single paragraph guy after Whitey Ford, Bob Lemon and Virgil Trucks. And unlike Capps, Stone was not the only member of his team on the the ’54 staff — with Porterfield and perennial All Star Mickey Vernon leading the Washington squad into Cleveland. The ’54 game turned out to be one of the more exciting All Star tilts in major league history, with the American League winning a nail-biting come-from-behind victory. Cleveland Wahoo Larry Doby provided the home town crowd with one of Cleveland’s great moments, spiraling a game tying home run into the left field seats to knot the score. With the bases loaded, Nellie Fox provided the winning single and the Americans were victorious, 11-9. Stone, who had pitched the eighth, got the victory, but he never threw a pitch. Instead, Stone caught Cardinal All Star Red Schoendienst attempting to steal home. Doby pinch hit for Stone in the bottom of the 8th and Virgil Trucks, closing out the game, preserved his win in the 9th.

Not every Nats game is a trip down memory lane, but damn near. Before the first pitch of last night’s Nats-Rockies tilt at Nationals Park, one of me droogs (here they are, for those of you who’ve forgotten), told me about watching a no-hitter pitched by fastballer Dick Bosman in Cleveland in 1974. “You’ve actually seen a no-hitter?” I asked. He nodded: “A great game,” he said. “Fantastic. It was back in the early 1970s, 1973-1974, something like that.” Being armed with one of those hand-held doohickies, I looked it up. The game in question came on July 19, 1974 at Cleveland’s Memorial Stadium, when the Naps faced off against Oakland’s White Elephants. The A’s would go on to take the World Series in ’74, but on that July day in Cleveland they looked helpless against Bosman.

Bosman had a more than serviceable career: his fastball carried him from sleepy Kenosha, Wisconsin into the Pirates organization, and then into the McCovey’s minor league system. He ended up in Washington, where he had his best years pitching for the Senators. His best year came in 1969, when he led the AL with the lowest ERA and went 14-5. He won 16 games in 1970. But even at the age of 27 — when Bosman should have been at his peak — he seemed to be running out of gas. Bosman went to Texas with the Senators, but then kicked around until 1974, when he landed a starting role in Cleveland, where the no-account Indians were doing what they have been doing throughout their long and painful franchise history: searching for pitching.

July 19, 1974 was a warm day in Cleveland, but it was not killer-hot like it can be in Cleveland and there had been showers in the morning. Bosman was slated to start against Oakland’s Dave Hamilton. With some 24,000 looking on (Cleveland Stadium — built in 1931 — held 78,000 for baseball), Bosman went to work, facing a line-up of Oakland bombers. In many ways, this was a typical Oakland team, a mix of speed and power complemented by a deep starting rotation: Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Reggie Jackson and Joe Rudi were at the heart of the order, with Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Ken Holtzman and Dave Hamilton the primary hurlers. “Blue Moon” Odom added to the mix, though his best years were in the past. The Indians and A’s were locked up into the third, when Joe Lis gave the Naps a 2-0 lead. In the top of the 4th, Bosman fielded a swinging bunt from Bando, but his throw was wide of first, and scored as an error. As it turned out, Bando was the only A’s baserunner for the day — and the one baserunner that would keep Bosman from a perfect game. By the end of the 7th, Bosman had faced only one more than the minimum.

In the ninth inning, on the verge of putting himself in baseball’s record books, Bosman approached his catcher, John Ellis. “Catch me on your belly if you have to,” Bosman said, “but make me keep the ball down.” Ellis squatted behind the plate, flashing his glove on the ground, nodding at Bosman. “I told myself it was John and me now,” Bosman remembered, “and I concentrated on getting those last three hitters.” In the ninth, Bosman put the Elephants down in order, sealing his no-hitter and (as he hoped) resuscitating his career. [Here's the boxscore] At the season’s beginning he had been on baseball’s junk pile and relegated to the bullpen. Now he was “in the books.” His teammates were ecstatic, and Cleveland fans chanted him off the field: “We want Bosman. We want Bosman.” He came out of the dugout after a time, and tipped his cap. “This is the culmination of everything I’ve worked for and dreamed about,” he said after the game. “I almost feel like I am dreaming.”

Bosman wasn’t long for baseball. In 1975, he was traded to the team he no-hit, with Jim Perry for Blue Moon Odom and cash. He had a good year with the A’s, pitching effectively and registering an 11-4 campaign. The A’s finished first in the AL West, seven games ahead of the Royals, and faced-off against the Red Sox for the AL pennant. The Red Sox crushed the A’s in three games, and went on to face the Reds in the World Series. Bosman saw little duty in the Red Sox post-season series, pitching to a single batter. The A’s released him in 1977 and he retired to his home in Florida. He spent the next twenty years in Florida, restoring antique cars — his obsession. He vowed to never look back. “When you shut the door on baseball, you have to keep it shut or it will never let you go.” Bosman has been a coach in the Tampa system since 2002.

There’s lots of things that happened on this date in history: in 1912 the Titanic set sail from Southampton (to meet its untimely demise five days later) and in 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published. Oh yeah, and in 1961 the expansion Washington Senators took the field for Opening Day at Griffiths Stadium. Of the three events, the last is the most forgettable, even if it most closely resembles the Titanic’s ghastly fate. These were not your daddy’s Senators (those Senators had boarded a plane for Minneapolis, where they became the Twins), and they certainly weren’t memorable: the Senators were cobbled together from an expansion draft of team leftovers when the men who then ran baseball decided that a team in Washington would balance the new high-end la-de-da franchise set to open in Los Angeles — and called (get this) the Angels.

Washington seemed an afterthought: a balancing act to the new west coast team — and its expansion draft reflected it. There just wasn’t that much talent available, and the talent that was available played in New York. Former Cubs great Dale Long came over from the Yankees to play first base, the beautifully named but limping Coot Veal came from the Tigers to play shortstop (which he did, but not often — and poorly), the aging Gene Woodling (38) came down the road from Baltimore to play the outfield and righthander Dick Donovan came in from the Pale Hose to anchor the staff. It wasn’t a surprise that the expansion Senators finished ninth that year — the surprise was that the Kansas City Athletics (then a virtual farm team for the Yankees) were actually worse: though both teams had the same 61-100 season. The Angels, on the other hand, finished ahead of the Senators by some nine wins. They had drafted better (Leon Wagner, Eddie Yost, Earl Averill, Ken Hunt!) and started to build a farm system.

Senators’ fans registered their disdain for the “Afterthoughts” by voting with their feet. The new expansion team drew just 597,000 fans, though the team’s owners thought this might improve — the next year the Senators were slated to move into the newly built “D.C. Stadium,” a then-state of the art facility that would later be named for Robert F. Kennedy. In all, there are only two good reasons to remember the ’61 Senators: Gene Woodling — whose career was revived by a surprising.313 season — and Dick Donovan, as classy a pitcher as there was in baseball. But Woodling’s surprise year was truly a surprise. A 38-year-old could not carry on forever and while Woodling would be remembered for his years of near-greatness with the Indians, he could not replicate them with the Senators. By 1963 he was out of the game.

Not so for Dick Donovan, a righthanded fastballer whose best year as a pitcher was still ahead of him. Donovan, who was originally signed as an amateur by the Boston Braves in 1947, had one day in the sun, though it was a long time coming. After three years of mediocrity bouncing between Boston and the minors, Donovan was signed by the Tigers, who (after eyeballing their wild new “ace”) sent him back to the Braves. “No thanks.” But in 1955 the Chicago White Sox took a gamble on Donovan and were rewarded, in large part because the New England righthander had developed a sneaky slider to complement his above-average fastball. The result was a 15-9 season and a spot at the top of the White Sox rotation. He thereafter served up four steady (and two not-so-steady) seasons before arriving in Washington.

Donovan’s claim to baseball fame, however, came in the third game of the 1959 World Series, when he pitched the best game of his career. Facing off against Dodger great Don Drysdale, Donovan gave up just two hits in 6.2 innings, while Drysdale served up eleven hits to the normally hitless Hose. But the White Sox were the hard-luck losers: after Donovan ambled to the dugout in the 6th, the Chicago bullpen collapsed and the Trolleys took the game 3-1. Donovan must have sensed the impending doom. While waiting for their new stadium to be completed in Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers played at the converted Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the short porch in left was guarded by a looming forty foot screen. As Donovan was warming up prior to facing Drysdale, he looked out at the screen and shook his head: “I wonder how a fellow ever gets the side out,” he said. “I guess you gotta be a positive thinker.”

Donovan was only 10-10 for the ’61 Senators, but he led the AL in ERA and might have become a feature of the new team’s rotation. But the Senators’ front office didn’t think he’d get much better and they dealt him (with Jim Mahoney and Gene Green) to Cleveland for Jimmy Piersall. It was a mistake. Piersall hit .244 for the Senators, while  Donovan won 20 games for the Indians. He was just so-so in the two years that followed and, after pitching only 22 innings in the ’65 season, he retired to his boyhood home in Massachusetts. For the next twenty years, Donovan was a successful businessman and a well-known figure in Weymouth. He died in 1997 at the age of 69.