Like in 1925, World Series champion Nats open title defense against the New York Yankees

“It was after the two teams, the two bands and the troops had marched out to center field to raise the flag that Mr. Coolidge was called on to pry the lid off officially,” the New York Times reported after Washington’s 10-1 win over the New York Yankees at Griffith Stadium. “He took a preliminary wind-up for the benefit of the camera men and let fly. His control was almost perfect and his fast one had a hop on it that showed the President has been devoting some time to this part of his official duties. The ball went shoulder-high to Walter Johnson who was waiting for it on the field.”

After catching Coolidge’s first pitch, Johnson pitched a complete game, limiting the Yankees to seven hits and one walk while striking out four. Goose Goslin doubled and tripled off New York starter Urban Shocker as part of the Senators’ 14-hit attack, and Washington finished 8 for 19 with runners in scoring position.

As Fred Frommer, the author of “You Gotta Have Heart,” a history of Washington baseball, detailed in 2015, the Senators opened the 1925 season on the road at Yankee Stadium and lost on Opening Day before winning the next three games in the series. Washington, which defeated the New York Giants in seven games to win the 1924 World Series, received a proper celebration when it returned to the District for its home opener a week later.

Coolidge, who started the tradition of inviting championship teams to the White House in 1924, was joined in his VIP section at Griffith Stadium by Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Attorney General John G. Sargent. They witnessed a dominating performance by the home team.

“If you heard the rattle of drumfire yesterday afternoon while you were wishing that you had been fortunate enough to get a seat for the opening of the Washington baseball season, that was the music of the world champions’ base hits bouncing off the fences of the ball park,” The Washington Post’s sports editor, N.W. Baxter, wrote. “If you heard a rumble of heavy artillery crossing over a hollow bridge, that was the feet of the Washington players as they dented home plate ten times while the New York Yankees scored but once. If you heard the roll of a distant thunder, that was the united voice of some 32,000 persons, including the President of the United States and many of those who sit at his council table, cheering the returning heroes in welcome and praise.”

With a new upper tier of seating in right field, the crowd was the largest for a baseball game in the ballpark’s history. Fauci’s first pitch, by contrast, will come before the smallest audience in Nationals history, with no spectators allowed at Nationals Park. (What’s Opening Day without complaints from fans about the long lines and wait times at concession stands? If Twitter existed in 1925, the missives coming from those packed into Griffith Stadium might have looked familiar.)

“Hot dogs were at a premium, and if any were to be had from the concessionaires, this reporter didn’t see any visible signs of them,” The Post’s Francis P. Daily reported from the 1925 home opener. “Instead, the white-coated vendors were making spasmodic efforts to sell boxed ice cream, while many of the spectators were craving canned heat and corn liquor.”

First lady Grace Coolidge, a bigger baseball fan than her husband, kept score during the game. She “tugged vigorously” at the president’s coat when he committed a faux pas by standing up before the visitors’ half of the seventh inning instead of Washington’s half.

“The President merely looked down at her and with an expression on his face strangely familiar to husbands when they are being corrected by their wives in public, he mumbled something not audible at a distance and remained standing,” the Times reported.

The crowd cheered when Coolidge stood up again during the traditional seventh-inning stretch. Fans filed out of the ballpark delighted after a 1925 homecoming for the World Series champions that was a sign of more good things to come.

“The warmth in the hearts of all those present was of the same intensity from the city’s most distinguished temporary resident, whose acquaintance with the Nationals is of comparatively recent origin, to the dean of the oldest inhabitants, who can remember the days when Washington was in the National League and hundreds instead of thousands constituted a capacity crowd,” Baxter wrote. “They came to see the champions of the world and they left satisfied that the trust had not been displaced, for by contrast with the New York Yankees, the Nationals looked good enough to win any pennant.”

The Senators won their second consecutive American League title in 1925 before falling to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series.

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