Home Plate at the Hospital
Home Plate at the Hospital
By Nana Gongadze
When I stepped off the Metro escalator, I silently cursed myself, for I was walking into what was clearly the start of a winter drizzle, without an umbrella on me. It was cold, too—the low 40s, perhaps. Still too warm for snow despite the chill. Decidedly offseason weather.
I clutched my tote bag closer to me to keep my things dry and walked up the sidewalk of 7th Street in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. Passing a lively little crowd outside of a liquor store, I waited to cross Florida Avenue while a Metro PCS behind me blared go-go music from its open doorway. A man jaywalking in my direction from across Florida did so dancing—a small jolt of energy and joy on a dreary winter Monday.
I crossed and continued down past a restaurant, and then there it was—the sprawling campus of the Howard University Hospital. Surrounded by a big parking lot and situated on a whole city block across from warehouses, a small Chinese spot, and a brick and concrete “Church of God.” This was what I was here to see. I was here to see it because of what it replaced—Griffith Stadium, the one-time center of baseball in the city of Washington.
The hospital’s main building, built 1975, is made of brown brick and wrapped with strips of dark windows. Its name blares out at the street from giant letters across its front that light up in the evenings. I stopped in the concrete plaza in front of the complex, and stared up, raindrops dampening my coat. I tried to imagine in my mind’s eye how Griffith had once looked in this spot. I’d be looking at the entrances and the grandstands that faced the field, which pointed east-southeast.
Griffith was built in 1911 and was the home of the Senators (owned by Clark Griffith) through the year 1960. The Negro National League’s Homestead Greys played many of their home games there too, from 1940. Like many fields of its era, it also played host to football, boxing, and other events, including many of the storied local HBCU, Howard University. Also like many of its time, Griffith had quirks—400-foot fields making it a decidedly pitcher’s park, and a right field wall that jutted in at a right angle to accommodate several houses and a large tree (“the Tree”) into which sluggers like Babe Ruth hit home runs.
Conscious of my proximity to sickness in a pandemic, I slid two masks onto my face and walked into the hospital. The masks did the double duty of preventing me from detecting the sterile smell. All I experienced was what I could see: a long, shiny linoleum floored hallway dotted with doors, potted plants, and signs directing visitors to the MRI center or outpatient services. I knew what I was looking for would be near the elevators at the end of the hallway, but where exactly, I did not know. One wall I passed was decorated with a large mural telling the history of Freedmen’s Hospital, the institution’s predecessor, and its reputation for turning out America’s Black physicians and dentists.
My worry about being unable to find the site I was seeking was misplaced. It caught my eye as soon as I approached the elevators: a large mounted photo montage, four by three feet or so, of all black and white photos, hung on the brick wall next to a wayfinding sign for the hospital. Merged were a series of images of the history of Griffith Stadium. A birds-eye view of a baseball game, a group photo of the Senators, Calvin Coolidge throwing out a ceremonial first pitch as decades of Presidents did there, a football scrum, what appeared to be the Howard drill team, and a photo of some Homestead Grays, leaning out of their dugout on a knee.
On the ground laid into the linoleum was an accurately scaled white batter’s box, complete with home plate. I stepped onto it, ticking off the names of the greats who’d once done the same on the real thing—Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Cool Papa Bell, Ted Williams, Buck Leonard, Mickey Mantle, and my favorite player of the past, Josh Gibson. He had a legendary career cut short in 1947, when he died at age 35. Despite never having set foot in the pre-integration major leagues, he was an astounding power hitter who was said to have hit over 800 home runs. If accurate, it would beat the record held currently by Barry Bonds (or Hank Aaron, if you prefer). But due to the piecemeal nature of stats in his league and era, the truth is frustratingly beyond reach.
I looked down at my feet and contemplated that this was probably the closest I’d ever get to a major league home plate. The mounted image on the wall before me was grainy on closer inspection, and there wasn’t any sign commemorating the greats that had electrified my city’s citizens in decades past—Black, white, and all others. Beyond the wall, somewhere deeper in the building, would be the spot where the pitcher’s mound once lay that played host to legends like Walter Johnson and Satchel Paige.
Because baseball left DC for 33 years with the departure of the Senators in the 1970s and Griffith itself was demolished in 1965, DC history is not colored as much by baseball teams the way it is in cities like New York, Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia and so on. And people who remembered Griffith specifically, especially in its heyday—there’s less and less of them left. As this history fades more rapidly into the past, I wondered if these stars and their stories would become more remote and less remembered.
Or, would increased interest in their contributions, especially those of Negro Leaguers, bring them more prominently to life, to become a bigger part of city history and sit at the table of legends that baseball never tires of worshipping? History isn’t alive; it’s up to us to make it so. This little offseason field trip was my way of doing that. I stepped out of the batter’s box, snapped a few photos, and trudged back to my dugout.
Nana Gongadze is an ardent baseball fan who lives in Washington D.C. and works in digital communications. She loves to spend the rest of her time reading, writing, and chattering about sports, history, art, and many other things – you can follow her doing so on Twitter at @NanaGongadze.