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Stadium in Washington D. C

Griffith Stadium stood in Washington, D. C., from 1911 to 1965, between Georgia Avenue and 5th Street (left field), and between W Street and Florida Avenue NW. The site was once home to a wooden baseball park. Built in 1891, it was called Boundary Field, or National Park after the team that played there: the Washington Senators/Nationals. It was destroyed by a fire in 1911. It was replaced by a steel and concrete structure, at first called National Park and then American League Park; it was renamed Clark Griffith Stadium for Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith in 1923. The stadium was home to the American League Senators from 1911 through 1960, and to an expansion team of the same name for their first season in 1961. The venue hosted the All Star Game in 1937 and 1956 and World Series games in 1924, 1925, and 1933. It served as home for the Negro league Homestead Grays during the 1940s, when it hosted the 1943 and 1944 Negro World Series. It was home to the Washington Redskins of the National Football League for 24 seasons, from the time they transferred from Boston in 1937 through the 1960 season. The ballpark was demolished in 1965; the site is now occupied by Howard University Hospital.

On March 17, 1911, Boundary Field, also known as National Park and American League Park (II), was destroyed by a fire started by a plumber's blowtorch. This left the owners of the Washington Senators in a difficult situation, since spring training had already begun and opening day was less than a month away. Thomas C. Noyes, president of the Senators, gained approval from the club's board of directors to build a new ballpark with a steel grandstand on the same site as Boundary Field. The quick construction of the ballpark was reported by The Washington Post: "Day and night the chanting of the negro laborers has been heard in the vicinity, like Aladdin's palace, the structure rose as if by magic." Construction of Griffith Stadium continued while the Senators were on the road, and was not completed until July 24, 1911.

The stadium was laid out at an angle within its block in the Washington street grid. Thus it was over 400 feet (122 m) down the left field line (east) to the bleachers (though this distance was shortened in later years by the construction of an inner fence). The fence also took an unusual right angled jut into right center field where a large tree and five houses stood, due to the unwillingness of the owners of the tree and houses to sell to the Senators' owners during construction of the stadium. The right field fence angled away from the infield sharply, which, in addition to a 30 feet (9 m) fence (to block the view from surrounding buildings) about 8 feet (2 m) inside the lower, outer wall, meant that relatively few home runs were hit at the stadium. The field's orientation was unorthodox, as center field was east southeast of home plate, which made for difficult visibility for the fielders in the late afternoon sun; recommended alignment is east northeast. The elevation of the natural grass playing field was approximately 100 feet (30 m) above sea level. The Senators' groundskeepers maintained a downhill slope from home plate to first base, supposedly to help accelerate slow Washington batters. However, Griffith's groundskeepers were still adept at keeping a fine sod field that was "compared to that of the best golf courses." This was in sharp contrast to the unkempt field that can be seen in photographs of Griffith prior to 1923. For many years, the right field grandstand wall served as the right field foul line for the last 15 feet (5 m) before the foul pole, making it impossible to catch a ball there. At one point in his youth, future MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn was the operator of the scoreboard. The new seating came from the complete rebuilding of the left field grandstand into a double decked tier. The new upper section was wider than the old, resulting in a roofline that was considerably higher than the roof of the main grandstand, leaving a visible 15 feet (5 m) gap between the two. At that point the wooden left field bleachers were also replaced by a large concrete deck that ran from the foul pole across left field and into center field. The first base pavilion remained single decked. The first attempt at a high wall was constructed across right field. By the time of the 1925 World Series the right field pavilion had also been double decked, and the angling right field wall and its scoreboard were reconstructed to align with the low right field wall, about 8 feet (2 m) inside of it. This also resulted in the unique inward pointing 90° angle in center field. Both versions of the tall fence had the effect of keeping the neighbors in the adjacent row houses from watching the games for free. Lights were installed for the 1941 season. The Senators played their first home night game on May 28. The right field fence was originally covered in various billboard advertisements, but in later years was painted a solid dark green. A bullpen area was built in right center field behind a short fence, providing a new target for left handed batters. In the mid 1950s, an inner fence was erected across left and center field, to reduce the home run distances by This inner fence stayed in place through the ballpark's final season, 1961. By 1961, the left field bleachers had been removed.

Every president of the United States from William Howard Taft to John F. Kennedy threw a ceremonial first pitch at least once at Griffith. The Senators even constructed a special presidential box near the first base dugout for the annual ritual. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a good friend of Clark Griffith, and had attended games at the stadium since his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the 1910s. When FDR returned to Washington in 1933 as president, Griffith visited the White House early every season to give Roosevelt season passes; he also constructed a special ramp at the ballpark that accommodated the president's special mobility needs after his bout with polio in 1921. The distant fences were no problem for sluggers like Josh Gibson, Mickey Mantle, and the Senators' own youngster Harmon Killebrew. There have been only three reported instances of a player hitting a home run over the left field bleachers: Mantle once and Gibson twice. Clark Griffith once said that Gibson hit more home runs into Griffith Stadium's distant left field bleachers than the entire American League. On April 17, 1953, Mantle hit a home run off Chuck Stobbs that was so impressive that someone tried to determine its flight with some accuracy, thus popularizing the term "tape measure home run". It was alleged to be 565 feet (172 m), although it bounced off the top of the back wall of the bleachers, adding some distance to its flight path. It was believed to be the 2nd longest home run ever hit at the time. Aside from some championship seasons in the early 1920s and 1930s, the Senators teams that played at Griffith Stadium were legendarily bad. The hapless Washington team became the butt of a well known vaudeville joke: "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League", a twist on the famous Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee eulogy of George Washington: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" (a similar phrasing was once used for the St. Louis Browns: "First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League.") Only one Washington, D. C., public high school baseball player ever hit a home run over the 30 foot high "green monster–like" right field wall at Griffith Stadium—Bill Harrison of Coolidge High School in 1952. In 1915, Joseph P. Derby hit a home run off the right field wall, and became the only known amateur baseball player believed to hit a ball completely out of Washington's Griffith Stadium. The stadium was still called Griffith Stadium in 1961, even though team owner Calvin Griffith had moved the original Senators club to the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis St. Paul (becoming the Minnesota Twins), to be replaced in Washington by a new expansion team, also called the Senators (now the Texas Rangers).

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 home to many events other than baseball and football. The All American Girls Professional Baseball League played games there during the league's existence. Over 180 boxing matches were held at the ballpark, including fights by Joe Louis. On July 23, 1942, a "battle of music" was held at Griffith between musicians Louis Armstrong and Charlie Barnet. Some of the 18,000 fans in attendance began to dance on the field in front of the bandstand. Spectators who remained in their seats complained that they could not see. When the police attempted to control the situation by stopping the music, a riot broke out, with some minor injuries and several teenagers being hauled away by the police. Scrap metal salvage rallies were held at least once at the stadium during World War II, where people would bring scrap metal to the ballpark to be melted and made into steel for new weapons. Griffith was also the home to public school events, church revivals, public meetings, and annual ROTC drill competitions. Billy Graham held a crusade at Griffith in 1960, preaching from a platform erected near second base. Two choir stands, each accommodating 500 singers, were set up along the foul lines. 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. The neighborhood was home to many black working class people, but also a class of young professional African American "elites" including Langston Hughes. Duke Ellington worked at Griffith selling hot dogs during his childhood. It would be five more years, along with government intervention, before the Redskins finally began employing black players, the last NFL team to do so.

In 1955, longtime Senators owner Clark Griffith died, and his nephew, Calvin Griffith, took over. Fewer and fewer fans were coming to the ballpark, due in large part to the St. Louis Browns' move to Baltimore in 1954, which meant Baltimoreans no longer had to come to Washington to see games. The American League opposed a move at first, but agreed under the condition that an expansion team, also named the Senators, would come to Washington, beginning in 1961. The original Senators moved to Minnesota, and the new Senators played at Griffith in 1961. However, in 1962, the Senators moved to the new D. C. 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. In 1962, it was leased to Howard University which used it for student parking. In 1963, Congress authorized money for the purchase and clearing of the stadium and in 1964 it sold to Howard University for about $1.5 million. The ballpark was demolished in 1965. Nearly a thousand of the stadium's seats were moved to Tinker Field in Orlando, Florida, at that time the spring training home of the Senators/Twins, where they remained until 2015 when that stadium was also demolished. The Howard University Hospital now occupies the site. A marker has been placed in the building designating the location of home plate. The expansion Senators remained in Washington through the 1971 season, then relocated to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and became the Texas Rangers in 1972.