Baseball returns to Washington on Thursday when the Nationals play their home opener at RFK, marking the first major-league game in D.C. since Sept. 30, 1971, when the Senators were still in the American League, Richard Nixon was still in the White House, America was still in Vietnam and the Expos were still in Canada.

"My memories of the last game?" says former Senators outfielder Elliott Maddox. "Run for your life."

That's because fans poured onto the field in the ninth inning, turning the last game in Washington Senators history into the March on Washington. With Washington holding a 7-5 lead over the Yankees and one out left to go, the fans raced over the field and forced the Senators to forfeit the game, cheating reliever Paul Lindblad out of his seventh victory. "We snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory," Maddox says. "We were pretty good at finding new ways to lose."

Maddox, who lives in South Florida these days, says fans started running onto the field midway through the game.

"It started as a trickle," he says. "Five or 10 fans the first time. Then 15 or 20, then it was 25 and it kept building until the last time they came out, it was like the invasion of Iraq. I was in center field at the time and we were leading – it was one of the few times we were winning $#150; and you couldn't see who was playing in right, couldn't see the left fielder, couldn't see into the dugout. At that point there was no way they were clearing the field and you knew you had to get off the field."

In what would prove to be the final game in Washington for 34 years, just 14,460 fans paid their way to bid adieu to their team. Still, that was better than the Senators' season average of 8,241 (which was even less than the Expos drew in Montreal last season). Which kind of explains why they were moving.

"The fans were told to stop coming out onto the field, but they just kept doing it. And at the end, you knew you just had to get out of there," Maddox says. "The fans just wanted to shake your hand and say good-bye. They weren't out there to do any kind of damage. They were just saying good-bye. But as a player that's kind of scary. You don't know what's in their mind. It only takes one guy ... one nut, to have another John Lennon situation.

"So you're running in but you're also trying to be somewhat hospitable. Saying, 'Hey guys. Thanks for everything.' You don't want to curse them because you're outnumbered. You definitely don't want to come across the guy straddling the line between sanity and insanity and [tick] him off."

In other words, it was a bit like managing Carl Everett. Or Tom Sizemore.

Rumors of the team's move had been flying for some time, and Senators owner Bob Short finally was given permission to move the team to Texas 10 days before the final game. The Senators' relocation was the 10th in baseball in less than 20 years and the fifth in the previous decade. Little did anyone realize at the time that no other team would move for more than three decades. Or that the Rangers would average less than 9,000 fans each of their first two seasons in Texas.

"It was just weird at the time," Maddox says. "We kept hearing the innuendos that we were going to move. And Bob Short was a wheeler-dealer. But you couldn't blame him. We didn't get any crowds. No one wants to play in front of an empty house; Sinatra wouldn't do it. You get the attitude, well, if the fans don't care why should I care?"

So it must have been a pretty emotional departure, huh? Lots of tears and hugging?

Continued...