Walter Johnson, c. 1909-11

Returning the national pastime to the nation's capital ranks right up there with dumping the DH in the baseball restorationist's manifesto.

Now may be Washington's last, best chance, reports the Washington Post.

Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell asks whether Washington can beat out San Juan for the Montreal Expos, playing home games this spring in 100-plus degree heat in Puerto Rico. (Les Expos' home field in Montreal, Olympic Stadium, is a contender for Worst Park Ever.)

The chances of the Expos moving for good in 2004 are reportedly 50-50.

The Post has an outstanding Washington baseball section that features a gallery of historic Senators photos.

Another particularly Natty site is maintained by a group of well-connected Washingtonians trying to lure a team inside the Beltway.

Mark Gauvreau Judge has written a book, Damn Senators, that chronicles the Nats' championship season of 1924 and honors the memory of his grandfather, Joe Judge, the team's hard-hitting first-baseman, who went on to coach baseball for many years at Georgetown.

The author writes in the New York Press that he would welcome big-league baseball's return to Washington on the condition the team play in a real park -- a great big one, evocative of the Dead Ball Era, that favors basehits over homeruns:

[A] modest proposal: if the Senators do return, build the biggest ballpark in history. Maybe 500 feet to every fence. Virtually every ball in play. That means doubles, triples, close plays at the plate. Fans would be on their feet instead of reading the paper.

The Sporting News writes on the significance of the 1924 World Series title to Senators history:

Generations of Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox fans have not seen their favorite franchise jump for joy after winning the World Series championship. It's been a long drought -- the Cubs haven't won one since 1908, the Red Sox since 1918.

But, had it not been for their miraculous 1924 season, the Senators would have had the worst drought of them all - 0-for-the-franchise. The Senators' seven-game World Series triumph over the New York Giants marked the only time in the 72-year history of Washington Senator baseball that they were able to bring home the coveted prize.

Read more on the '24 Nats from the late Shirley Povich and from Elysian Fields Quarterly, a literary baseball journal worth noting.

And while Washington did have a well-established Cuban pipeline, it turns out the legend of a young Fidel Castro trying out for the Senators is just that. So an ensuing half-century of political turbulence in the Caribbean cannot necessarily be blamed on the shortsightedness of Calvin Griffith's pitching scouts.