Biff and Iris Henley are season ticket holders at Nationals Park, which will host a special event on May 21 for Older Americans Month. They and other local fans remember Griffith Stadium and D.C.’s long wait for a home team. Photo courtesy of Iris Henley

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The sun sets over left field at Nationals Park, located on the Anacostia River in the Navy Yard neighborhood of D.C. When the ballpark opened in 2008, “no grass was ever greener,” according to the Washington Post. Photo by Laurel Meadows | Pixabay

Let us leave our close rooms … The game of ball is glorious.

—Walt Whitman

Every spring, when baseball superfan Iris Henley returns to Nationals Park for opening day, she greets fellow fans with “Happy New Year!”

Henley has attended almost every Washington Nationals home game and has “made lifelong friends” through baseball, the Maryland retiree said.

“It doesn’t matter who you are; everybody talks to everybody else because your commonality is baseball. It’s wonderful.”

Henley, 82, and her husband, Biff, 89, have had season tickets to Nationals Park since it opened in 2008.

“We decided that because they were bringing baseball back to Washington, we would be supportive, so we got season tickets. We would share it with the kids and the grandkids, and we got hooked,” she said.

On May 21, for the first time, Nationals Park is hosting a special celebration in honor of Older Americans Month. Hundreds of older fans can sit in a special section reserved just for them.

The ballpark may look new, with its jumbotron and dozens of vendors selling everything from crab cakes to tacos, but the game itself remains just about the same as it has been for generations.

Childhood memories of baseball

Of course, for decades DMV baseball fans had no home team. The Washington Senators left town in the early 1970s. Henley was a child when she saw them play.

“I vaguely remember going to Senators games at Griffith Stadium and the smell of Wonder bread,” she said.

Retired attorney Rob Surovell of Mount Vernon, Virginia, also remembers the sights and sounds of Griffith Stadium, home of the Senators since 1911.

“When I was about 7 years old, my mother took me to Griffith Stadium. We sat in the left-centerfield bleachers, and I probably got a hot dog,” he recalled.

Surovell also attended “many, many games” at RFK Stadium, which opened in 1961. Ten years later, it hosted its last Major League Baseball game, to the dismay of fans and players.

As Bucky Harris, former Senators second baseman and manager, said before the final game, “I never thought I’d see the day when they would leave Washington without a franchise.”

Bereft, a generation of local fans had to turn to other teams. “When I was a kid, the Orioles and the [Alexandria] Dukes was about all there was,” said Scott Surovell, 54.

When D.C. finally secured a hometown baseball team in 2005, Scott Surovell became a season-ticket holder and attends games with his four children and father, Rob.

“Baseball is my therapy. It’s an escape — it’s a way to get away,” he said. “Getting baseball games on my sched lets me focus on something I love other than work.”

A new Nationals Park

RFK Stadium hosted the Nats’ first few seasons (it closed in 2019 and was demolished this year).

Nationals Park, built in just two years in the Navy Yard neighborhood, opened in 2008. With a capacity of more than 40,000 people, it was the first Major League Baseball stadium to earn LEED Silver certification, meaning it adhered to environmentally beneficial practices, reducing landfill waste and promising to use 15% less energy than other ballparks.

Baseball fans were thrilled when the Nats won the World Series in 2019. Since then, the team hasn’t quite hit that high, but that doesn’t matter to some fans.

In fact, Tenleytown baseball devotee Jane Whitaker, 86, roots for either the Orioles or the Nats, depending on the time of day.

“Whenever the Nationals play late at night, I still watch the Orioles. I switch between the two,” she said. “As a senior, it’s still nice when you can find day games.”

As a kid in West Virginia, she said, “I played baseball with a bunch of the boys a lot.” She joined the softball team in college and once broke her foot sliding into third base, she said.

But despite being a lifelong fan of the game, Whitaker had only attended one Senators game and one Orioles game before the Northwest Neighbors Village began organizing trips to Nationals Park several years ago. Going to the new stadium was a revelation, she said.

“It’s fun to be there early to see how they set the field up and see the players work out before the game,” Whitaker said. “I like seeing all the action. You miss a lot on TV. You don’t realize you miss it until you go to a game.”

New generation of fans

As for Henley, she has attended hundreds of games during her lifetime. She grew up going to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, where her family had box seats. She and her husband love the camaraderie and energy they find in the stadium, no matter what the scoreboard says.

“I have wonderful memories of being with family and learning about the game and the excitement of the fans,” she said. When she was a child, she remembers she and her family cheering at the top of their lungs. “Now you can scream as an adult too.”

Like Surovell, Henley brings her grandchildren to Nationals Stadium so they can root, root, root for the home team. After all, baseball runs in the family.

“The first song I taught my grandchildren was ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame,’” she said.

For tickets to the special celebration for Older Americans Month on Thurs., May 21, visit gofevo.com/event/Celebrateolder2. The game begins at 4 p.m., but pre-game networking starts at 2:45 p.m. For more information, email Gabbi.Leggett@nationals.com or call (202) 640-7697.