Four Mile Run Park (Alexandria, VA)

Entrance to Four Mile Run Park in Arlington, Virginia, in the twenty-first century. (City of Arlington)

 

Take a flood-prone elementary school. Add a peppery, baseball-mad mayor and a group of disgruntled neighbors. Mix in dozens of minor-league ballplayers, ranging from top prospects to unwanted, unsigned good-enough-to-dream types. Oh, and throw in a bunch of U.S. Congressmen, too.

From those motley ingredients arises the unique story of Four Mile Run Park, a former minor-league ballpark in the close-in Washington, D.C., suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. The park consisted of little more than metal bleacher seating added to an already fenced and lit baseball field on a temporarily vacant school property.1 From a 21st-century perspective – accustomed as we are to luxury suites, grassy seating berms, beer gardens, and bounce playgrounds for the kids – Four Mile Run Park is a reminder of just how little it took, as late as the 1980s, to constitute a minor-league baseball facility.

Still, this most basic of ballparks hosted some history. Teams in the Class A Carolina League called Four Mile Run Park home for six seasons, including affiliates of the Seattle Mariners and Pittsburgh Pirates. Future World Series champion and six-time All-Star Bobby Bonilla played there. Those fans that turned out saw a league championship team and a no-hitter. So did a few young sportswriters, paying their dues, who went on to greater media fame.

Four Mile Run Park also hosted the annual Congressional baseball game from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s. C-SPAN, the cable news network usually devoted to Congressional debate, clumsily reinvented itself as a sports broadcaster to air some of the games – bringing the humble ballpark onto the TV screens of policy wonks across America. Like the games of the Class A Alexandria Dukes and Mariners, the Congressional game wasn’t always well-played, but it generated colorful memories.

The story of Four Mile Run Park could be said to have originated in the 1930s childhood of Frank Mann. The baseball-loving boy, whose father owned a potato chip company, won a free ticket to a 1933 World Series game featuring his hometown Washington Senators in a subscription-selling competition for the Washington Daily Times newspaper. This achievement remained a source of pride to Mann more than four decades later, by which time he was on his second stint as mayor of Alexandria, a city of about 105,000 residents.2

A second piece of the puzzle dropped into place on September 30, 1971, when major league baseball’s second Washington Senators played their chaotic final game before moving to Arlington, Texas, and becoming the Texas Rangers.3

Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, a Washington-area native and former scoreboard operator at Griffith Stadium, expressed interest in bringing big-league ball back to the city. But Mann doubted the majors would take a third chance on Washington and had his own ideas on how to fill the District’s baseball void. In October 1977, he announced that he and “some friends” were raising money to bring a Triple-A team, the top level of the minor leagues, to Alexandria. Mann floated a city high school as the most likely site for the team to play, noting that its stadium – while needing improvement – already had a seating capacity of 7,500.4

Bobby Bragan, the former player and manager then serving as head of the minor leagues, immediately shot down the report, saying the Triple-A International League was not interested in expansion.5 But Mann found a more feasible partner in the Carolina League, a loop that had been operating for previous three seasons with just four teams.6 Alexandria and Kinston, North Carolina, bought their way into the league for 1978. (Mann later explained his step down to Class A by conceding, “Maybe we ought to try to walk before we fly.”7)

At some point, the high school passed from consideration as a stadium site, but Mann had another option. The former Cora Kelly Elementary School on Commonwealth Avenue, opened in 1955,8 had been closed in 1976 due to repeated flooding from nearby Four Mile Run, a stream feeding into the Potomac River. A $63 million Army Corps of Engineers flood control project promised a solution to the problem. It was already under way in 1978 and was completed two years later.9

Essentially, Mann proposed investing $120,000 of public money to improve the playing field and parking areas at the school, while using parts of the empty building for clubhouse, concessions, and team office space. Members of the city’s School Board opposed the idea. Some neighbors complained about traffic and other impacts. They also noted that Mann had not publicly identified the baseball investors who would benefit from taxpayer-funded improvements. But the City Council supported the proposal and carried the day, appropriating money for the improvements in February 1978. A legal attempt to block the appropriation failed, and Four Mile Run Park was hastily assembled for the upcoming season.10

The new park could seat 2,500 – though it was rarely called to do so after opening day, when 3,500 turned out. It had symmetrical field dimensions of 310 feet down the foul lines, 385 feet to the power alleys, and 400 feet to straightaway center.11 Sections of metal bleachers and folding chairs provided the seating, with no permanent grandstand.12 Fences were chain-link, bedecked with ads for local businesses, and a basic scoreboard stood beyond the left-field fence.13 “You couldn’t really call this a stadium,” outfielder Jimmy Williams said. “It’s just bleachers behind an elementary school.”14

By late July, the amount invested in Four Mile Run Park had grown to $162,000.15 Players and managers agreed it wasn’t enough. The outfield became known for bad hops from an erratic surface, as well as debris. One Dukes outfielder joked about finding metal and glass there – “I’ve got two fenders, one hubcap, a drive shaft and four spark plugs.” Future big-league manager and pitching coach Leo Mazzone, then managing Kinston, called it “the worst [outfield] I have ever seen anywhere in pro ball.” Infielder Gary Pellant added: “We have unusual [infield] soil. Whenever it rains, it grows rocks.” Still another Duke compared the park to an American Legion field.16

Outfielder Williams, who had previously played in Japan and reached Triple-A, provided the best perspective: “They can’t make it great down here, or you wouldn’t want to get away from it so bad.” (In more or less the same breath, he added, “I gotta admit, I never thought I’d see a field where I’d rather DH than play.”)

The no-frills park offered no more perks to fans than to players. Those who wanted hot dogs had to buy them through the open window of a school classroom, repurposed into a “concession stand.”17 “It was a cheap place, a bandbox,” fan Pat Malone remembered years later. “It was miserably hot and sticky, and you were close to the river. … It seemed held together back then by Band-Aids.”18

The first-year 1978 Dukes, an unaffiliated team, were a dead-end crew to match their ballpark. Some were selected from a tryout camp.19 The second-year Seattle Mariners, playing 2,800 highway miles away from Alexandria, sent a handful of players as well.20 One of them, pitcher Ron Musselman, became the only 1978 Duke to reach the majors. The Dukes even signed 25-year-old rookie Mickey Mantle Jr. as a novelty and gate attraction. In 57 at-bats across 17 games, Mantle hit .070 and was given his release.

Manager Les Peden, briefly a catcher for the 1953 Senators, stepped away from running a Florida campground to take his first managing job since 1966.21 Coincidentally, Peden – playing his first major-league game – had been the Washington Senators’ catcher on April 17, 1953, the day the elder Mickey Mantle hit a legendary home run off Senators pitcher Chuck Stobbs that was estimated at 565 feet. Peden led the team to fourth place with a 58-75 record, 29 games back, and never again managed professionally. About 45,000 fans came to the park that year, tops in the league.22

Those who didn’t come could listen to the games on a small local radio station, with pre-recorded crowd noise piped in under the announcer’s play-by-play to give the impression of a larger stadium. Getting to the ballpark might have been tougher than it sounds: One reporter who visited Four Mile Run Park in its first season wrote that he stopped at local gas stations for directions, and no one knew anything about the team or its park.23

The team affiliated with Seattle for a single season in 1979, occasioning a one-year name change to the Alexandria Mariners – as well as more investment to improve Four Mile Run Park’s drainage to meet the demands of the parent club.24 Former infielder Bobby Floyd led a vastly more professional squad to a second-place finish and 74-62 record. Five future major-leaguers appeared for the Dukes, and one turned his career around at Four Mile Run Park. After five dismal seasons at Rookie and Class A levels, pitcher Bryan Clark discovered control and went 14-5. He reached Seattle two seasons later.25

Pellant never made the majors as a player, manager, or coach, but he briefly drew national attention to Alexandria on April 30, 1979. Playing against Salem at Four Mile Run Park, the switch-hitting Pellant homered from both sides of the plate in a 12-run seventh inning. Researchers discovered a few days later that he wasn’t the first hitter to homer from both sides of the plate in the same half-inning: Ellis Burton of the Triple-A Toronto Maple Leafs had done the same thing in 1961. Still, the exceeding rarity of the feat led to media attention. Pellant later became a minor-league manager and scout.26

The re-renamed Dukes spent 1980 as a cooperative club, fielding players supplied by seven different organizations.27 Drama off the field overshadowed the Dukes’ performance on it, as the team slipped to last place with a 54-86 record.

As the city school district prepared to reopen Cora Kelly Elementary School at partial capacity, the School Board voted in June to deny the Dukes a new lease for Four Mile Run Park. Later the same night, the City Council voted to renew the Dukes’ lease, on the basis that the city owned the field, and the School Board only controlled the school building.28

City Council once again won the day, and the debate over building use was resolved in the Dukes’ favor – although running concessions, locker rooms, and team operations on a property built for another purpose remained an unsatisfactory experience.29 More ominously, City Council rejected a request from Dukes management to help pay for a new ballpark in a different area of the city.30

Two young journalists getting their starts at Washington newspapers had front-row seats to the action in that time period. Tim Kurkjian of the Washington Star became a nationally known author, sportswriter, and TV personality. Peter Mehlman of the Washington Post achieved success in a different field, serving as a writer and producer of the TV comedy Seinfeld.

Years later, Kurkjian recalled an incident when Mehlman sarcastically referred to the Dukes’ home field in print as “Three Mile Island Park” – implying that it was a disaster comparable to Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which had made international headlines the previous year when it suffered a partial meltdown.31 Kurkjian also recalled getting the chance to bat against Hall of Famer Bob Feller in a pregame exhibition at Four Mile Run Park. In retirement, Feller made frequent barnstorming appearances at minor-league ballparks, sometimes offering fans the chance to hit against him.32

Shortly after the 1980 season ended, the Dukes affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates, a partnership that would last the final three years of baseball at Four Mile Run Park.33

Alexandria fans got to see their only professional no-hitter in this period, though it wasn’t thrown by a Duke. Steve Ibarguen of the Lynchburg Mets pitched a rain-shortened, six-inning perfect game at Four Mile Run Park on August 15, 1981.34

The major league players’ strike of 1981 boosted crowds at Dukes games, at least temporarily. The team’s average attendance before the strike began on June 12 had been 559 fans per game. In the eight games immediately after the strike began, the team’s average crowd more than doubled, to 1,123 per game (in a park with listed capacity of 2,016).35 The boom times didn’t last, though, as the Dukes closed the season averaging crowds of just under 600 fans per game.36

The Pirates-Dukes partnership brought Alexandria its only championship. The 1982 Dukes, managed by Johnny Lipon, handily won the Carolina League’s North Division with an 80-54 record, then swept the Durham Bulls in three games to win the postseason playoffs.37

Many of Alexandria’s best-known players passed through during the Pittsburgh years. Bonilla, age 20, hit .256 with 11 homers and 59 RBIs for Alexandria in 1983, three seasons before he broke into the big leagues. Others included pitchers Scott Bailes and Tim Burke, infielders Rafael Belliard and Sam Khalifa, outfielder Joe Orsulak, and two future Chicago Cubs managers in Mike Quade and Rick Renteria. With genuine prospects on their roster, the Dukes had come a long way from their low-budget, independent first season.

Unfortunately, political conflict between city and school officials carried over into the early 1980s, as did opposition from some neighbors. Mann had left office by then, and his successor reportedly described the Dukes as “a loser for the city.”38 By April 1981, $280,000 had been invested in Four Mile Run Park, but the Washington Post still described the facility as “one of the shoddiest playing fields in professional baseball” and “an impossible combination of ruts, mounds and rocks.”39

Also, the Dukes never captured the hearts of D.C.-area baseball fans strongly enough to thrive. General Manager Rick Holt said the team lost $129,000 in its first three seasons. Because Four Mile Run Park was so closely tied to school property, the Dukes were never able to sell beer, another factor that limited fan turnout.40

By 1983, the defending champion Dukes were averaging about 600 fans per game at Four Mile Run Park, then listed as having a capacity of 1,800. In June, City Council member Donald Casey pitched a $1 million new stadium elsewhere in Alexandria. His colleagues shot him down almost immediately. In July, Dukes owner Eugene Thomas said he was fielding offers from interested buyers in Charleston, West Virginia; Newport News, Virginia; and nearby Fairfax County, Virginia, also in the D.C. suburbs.41

In mid-July, the eternal friction of the Dukes’ existence finally gave way to the inevitable. The team announced plans to move at season’s end to a new $1 million stadium with 6,000 seats in Prince William County, Virginia, near the community of Dale City, about 25 highway miles south of Alexandria. A handful of faithful fans expressed disappointment. But former School Board chairman Lou Cook likened the relationship between the team and the school district to “a shotgun wedding,” adding: “I have no malice toward the Dukes or anything against baseball. But we shouldn’t have been married in the first place.”42

The Dukes’ last game at Four Mile Run Park was a 4-1 win over Salem on September 3, 1983.43 The team marked its passing by sending a Dukes jersey to the collection of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.44 That same autumn, the Cora Kelly School relaunched as the Washington area’s first science and technology magnet school at the elementary level, which it remained as of 2022.45

No account of Four Mile Run Park would be complete without a mention of the Congressional baseball game, which brought lawmakers-turned-athletes to the field from 1978 through 1994.46 Squeezing into the uniforms of pro teams from their home districts, the legislators played good-humored matchups, with proceeds going to charity.

Former major-league pitcher and future National League president John Tener founded the game in 1909 while serving as a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania.47 For decades, the game was played at major-league stadia in Washington or Baltimore. But two rainouts in 1977 forced a move to a much humbler setting – a high-school field in Fairfax County.48

The next year, the arrival of the Dukes and Four Mile Run Park split the difference between the two extremes. Four Mile Run Park, however modest, was a working professional ballpark – a notch above a mere high-school field in status, if not necessarily in amenities. At the same time, it provided a more intimate setting than major-league ballparks, better suited to the typical crowd for the event.49 Conveniently, the little park in Alexandria was also just a 20-minute drive from Congressional offices.50

The Congressmen eventually left Four Mile Run Park when a newer and nicer minor-league facility became available. Prince George’s Stadium, near Bowie, Maryland, opened in 1994 and took over the game the following year. When Major League Baseball finally returned to Washington, D.C., in 2005, so did the game.51

The Democrats and Republicans evenly split their games at Four Mile Run Park. Each team won eight, and the 1983 game ended in a mutually agreed-on 17-17 tie after nine innings.52 One noteworthy matchup took place in 1987, when the Republicans trotted out a distinguished starting pitcher: Jim Bunning, the former Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies staff ace, then a freshman Congressman from Kentucky. The Democrats shelled the 55-year-old Bunning for six runs in two innings and held on for a 15-14 win. In the following year’s game, the future Baseball Hall of Famer played first base.53

Texas Republican Ron Paul, meanwhile, earned himself a small portion of fame in the 1979 game. Batting against Ron Mottl of Ohio, Paul drove a curveball down the left-field line, where it cleared the fence 310 feet away. While record-keeping in Congressional games has not always been stringent, Paul is widely credited as the first player in Congressional history to hit an over-the-fence home run. (He had shown a hint of power in the 1976 game, when he hit another of Mottl’s curveballs off the top of the outfield fence at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium and collected a double.)54

Since the departure of minor-league ball and federal legislators, the park has hosted the Alexandria Aces, a summer team for college-age players and the 2022 champions of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League.55 A local high school, Bishop Ireton High School, and Alexandria Little League teams also played there as of 2022.56 The facility has been renamed Frank Mann Field in honor of the mayor who willed it into reality.57

 

Attendance

Year-by-year attendance at Four Mile Run Park during the years the facility hosted professional baseball:58

Year	Team	Affiliation	Attendance	Avg. Per Game
1978	Dukes	Independent	45,220	680
1979	Mariners	Seattle Mariners	34,614	509
1980	Dukes	Cooperative	30,140	431
1981	Dukes	Pittsburgh Pirates	40,659	594
1982	Dukes	Pittsburgh Pirates	44,306	661
1983	Dukes	Pittsburgh Pirates	41,404	604

 

Acknowledgments

This story was reviewed by Rory Costello and Brian P. Wood and fact-checked by Paul Proia.

 

Sources

The author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org for background information on players, teams, and seasons.

 

Notes

1 Leonard Shapiro, “Alexandrians Eye ‘A’ Ball,” Washington Post, January 7, 1978. Accessed August 29, 2022.

2 Eduardo Cue, “Alexandria’s Feisty Mayor,” Washington Post, July 11, 1978. Accessed August 23, 2022. Mann first served as mayor of Alexandria from 1961 to 1967; he was re-elected in 1976. The story does not specify which World Series game Mann saw; Games Three, Four, and Five of the 1933 Series were played at Washington’s old Griffith Stadium. According to the U.S. Census, Alexandria’s population was about 111,000 in 1970 and about 103,200 in 1980.

3 The first Washington Senators franchise left the nation’s capital after the 1960 season, becoming the Minnesota Twins. The second franchise was created in a round of American League expansion, so major-league play in Washington continued without a break in 1961.

4 Nancy Scarnell, “AAA Club Eyed for Alexandria,” Washington Post, October 6, 1977. Accessed August 23, 2022.

5 Nancy Scarnell and Eduardo Cue, “Alexandria Baseball Bid Seen Dead,” Washington Post, October 7, 1977. Accessed August 23, 2022.

6 The Western Carolina League and the Carolina League, each down to four teams, played an interlocking schedule in 1975. Jim Dunlap, “The Sports Scene,” Nashville (North Carolina) Graphic, February 25, 1975: 6.

7 Cue, “Alexandria’s Feisty Mayor.”

8 “Maryland and Virginia News in Brief,” Washington (District of Columbia) Evening Star, March 17, 1955: A38.

9 H. Bradford Fish, “Project for Flood Control at Four Mile Run Dedicated,” Washington Post, August 28, 1980. Accessed August 23, 2022.

10 Eduardo Cue, “Alexandria Council, School Board Differ on Baseball Issue,” Washington Post, February 9, 1978; Edward Cue, “Council Moves to Get Baseball for Alexandria,” Washington Post, February 19, 1978; Bob Moskowitz, “The Way The Ball Bounces,” Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, March 19, 1978: D3. Accessed August 23, 2022.

11 Ron Rosen, “New York Takes the Side of Spinks,” Washington Post, March 24, 1978. Accessed August 23, 2022.

12 “Four Mile Run Park,” Baseball-Reference Bullpen, accessed August 29, 2022.

13 Thomas Boswell, “Class A Duke Fans: An Unflagging 700,” Washington Post, July 28, 1978. The scoreboard can be seen in C-SPAN’s broadcasts of the 1982 Congressional baseball game and 1983 Congressional baseball game, accessed August 29, 2022.

14 Boswell, “Class A Duke Fans: An Unflagging 700.”

15 Blaine Harden, “Dukes Fight to Survive Red Ink, Antagonism,” Washington Post, July 29, 1978. Accessed August 23, 2022.

16 Comments in this paragraph and the next taken from Thomas Boswell, “The Dukes” and “Class A Duke Fans: An Unflagging 700,” Washington Post, July 27, 1978. Accessed August 23, 2022.

17 Several news stories about the Dukes mentioned the classroom “concession stand.” A fan’s first-person account of buying food through a classroom window appears in Sean Scully, “Playing in the Minors,” Napa Valley Register (Napa, California), March 5, 2017: D3.

18 “Remember The Dukes?,” Connection Newspapers, posted March 29, 2006; accessed November 14, 2022.

19 Bob Moskowitz, “Need for Inner Strength,” Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, June 11, 1978: D3.

20 Boswell, in “The Dukes,” said the Mariners sent two players to Alexandria. Another story printed the same week in the same newspaper suggested the number was greater, saying Seattle had loaned the Dukes “a number of players throughout the season.” Dave Scheiber, “Majors Contact Dukes About 1979 Affiliation,” Washington Post, July 26, 1978. Accessed August 26, 2022.

21 Betty Cuniberti, “Dukes to Debut, Pants Won’t,” Washington Post, April 14, 1978. Accessed August 23, 2022.

22 Russell Carter, “New-Look Mariners Set for Second Season,” Washington Post, April 8, 1979. Accessed August 23, 2022.

23 John Walter, “Dukes’ Baseball – A ‘Minor’ Happening in Alexandria,” Washington Star, September 3, 1978: F1.

24 Carter, “New-Look Mariners Set for Second Season.”

25 Clark credited Mariners organizational pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and Alexandria coach Mickey Bowers for his breakthrough. “Mariners’ Clark: Wildly Wise,” Washington Post, May 13, 1983. Accessed August 23, 2022.

26 Bill Mitchell, “Gary Pellant Has the Inning Of His Life: My Most Memorable Minor-League Game,” Baseball America. Posted March 30, 2020; accessed August 23, 2022. Also: “Mantle, Rose Are Second,” Atlanta Constitution, May 6, 1979: 2D.

27 Bart Barnes, “New Dukes Begin New Season Friday,” Washington Post, April 5, 1981. Accessed August 23, 2022.

28 Gary Davidson, “Dukes Lose, Then Regain Home Field,” Washington Post, June 27, 1980; Robert Meyers, “In Alexandria, The Same Old Ballgame,” Washington Post, July 3, 1980. Accessed August 23, 2022.

29 A 1981 news story reported that the Dukes’ team “offices” were housed, not in the school building, but in a nearby trailer that was regularly hit by foul balls. Dave Fassett, “Class A Isn’t the First Class,” Raleigh News and Observer, August 4, 1981: 11.

30 “Alexandria Dukes’ Lease Renewed,” Washington Post, May 1, 1980. Accessed August 23, 2022.

31 Tim Kurkjian, I’m Fascinated by Sacrifice Flies: Inside the Game We All Love (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016): 207.

32 Dan Shaughnessy, “In A Glorious Throwback, Jim Lonborg Will Take the Mound Again,” Boston Globe. Posted August 26, 2015; accessed November 14, 2022. The author also found several references in Newspapers.com to “Bat Against Bob Feller” promotions at minor-league games, particularly from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s.

33 Barnes, “New Dukes Begin New Season Friday.”

34 Associated Press, “Ibarguen Pitches Perfect Game,” Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, Arizona), August 16, 1981: B12. Dukes pitcher Fernando Gonzales pitched a no-hitter on the road in 1982 against Winston-Salem. “Hatcher’s Perfect for Durham Bulls,” News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), August 14, 1982: 1B.

35 Gary Pomerantz, “Minor Leagues Alive and Well,” Washington Post, July 4, 1981. Accessed August 23, 2022.

36 Attendance information from the StatsCrew.com page on Four Mile Run Park, accessed October 21, 2022.

37 Sean Burke, “Goldthorn’s Slam In Seventh Gives Dukes Title, 8-5,” Washington Post, September 5, 1982. Accessed August 23, 2022. The championship-clinching game was in Durham.

38 Denis Collins, “Dukes Aim to Survive Political Squeeze Play,” Washington Post, April 17, 1981. Accessed August 23, 2022.

39 Denis Collins, “Dukes Aim to Survive Political Squeeze Play.”

40 Collins, “Dukes Aim to Survive Political Squeeze Play;” Jonathan Lansner, “Life of Baseball Player No Picnic Down on the Farm,” Pittsburgh Press, June 28, 1982: C-3; Michel Marriott, “Devoted Fans Saddened as Third Strike is Called on Alexandria Dukes,” Washington Post, July 16, 1983, accessed August 23, 2022. Lansner reported that Alexandria City Council voted down a request to sell beer in 1982, while Marriott wrote that the School Board “consistently blocked” the idea of beer sales. Some accounts say the Dukes’ inability to sell beer was a primary reason for the team’s failure, though this seems like hyperbole in retrospect: D.C.-area fans, accustomed to watching the majors, had plenty of reasons not to support a team playing entry-level baseball in a rinky-dink ballpark.

41 John Burgess, “Casey Goes to Bat for Dukes,” Washington Post, June 16, 1983; Bart Barnes, “Owner Reports Possible Offers for Dukes,” Washington Post, July 8, 1983. Accessed August 23, 2022.

42 Marriott, “Devoted Fans Saddened as Third Strike is Called on Alexandria Dukes.”

43 Carolina League standings printed in the Raleigh (North Carolina) News and Observer, September 4, 1983: 12B, specify that the final game was played at Alexandria. The league standings printed in the Durham (North Carolina) Morning Herald, September 4, 1983: 10B, provide the score of the final game.

44 “Sports in Brief,” Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, September 3, 1983: C2.

45 Evelyn Hsu, “Principal Sees School as Family,” Washington Post, January 2, 1992. Accessed August 23, 2022.

46 “Wins & Losses Through the Years” page, part of “An Annual Outing: The Congressional Baseball Game,” History, Art & Archives website of the U.S. House of Representatives. Accessed August 26, 2022.

47 “An Annual Outing: The Congressional Baseball Game.”

48 “Wins & Losses Through the Years.”

49 For example, attendance at the 1973 game in Baltimore was estimated at 5,000. Memorial Stadium had a capacity of 53,208 at the time, according to the Seamheads.com ballpark database. John Schulian, “GOP Athletes Creak to Win,” Baltimore Evening Sun, July 31, 1973: C20.

50 David Hawkings, “Kasich Satisfied with Game,” Newark (Ohio) Advocate, August 5, 1989: 4.

51 David Montgomery, “Two Months Late, It’s ‘Play Ball!’ Time in Bowie,” Washington Post, June 2, 1994. Accessed August 26, 2022; “Wins & Losses Through the Years.” The game returned to Washington, D.C., when the Nationals moved there from Montreal for the 2005 season and was being played at Nationals Park as of 2022.

52 “Wins & Losses Through the Years.”

53 Jeffrey Marx, “It’s Jim Bunning at First in Congressional Baseball Game,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Times, August 10, 1988: A2. Bunning was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. Another famous pitcher-turned-Congressman, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, never got to play in a Congressional game at Four Mile Run Park. The North Carolina Republican was defeated in his re-election campaign in 1974 and was no longer serving in Congress when the park opened.

54 David Meyers, “Home Run Lands Ron Paul in Hall of Fame,” Roll Call. Posted June 27, 2012; accessed August 26, 2022.

55 Chris Damond, “History in Alexandria. Aces Derail Big Train for First Championship,” Alexandria Aces website. Accessed October 21, 2022.

56 “Frank Mann Field,” Alexandria Aces website. Accessed October 21, 2022.

57 Frank Mann died in 2007. “Frank E. Mann,” Washington Post, April 27, 2007. Accessed August 29, 2022.

58 Attendance information from the StatsCrew.com page on Four Mile Run Park, accessed October 21, 2022.