Washington — First in War, First in Peace, Last in the American League.

The above comment was written by Shirley Povich, a brilliant sportswriter for The Washington Post back in the day (Maury’s his son) when I could walk from my house and get into the Griffith Stadium bleachers for fifty cents, with the other fifty cents getting me a hot dog, a coke and a program.

I must have had a pile of Senator programs in my bedroom which was three feet tall. To her credit, my mother once came into the bedroom, took one look at my collection of ‘valuable’ paperwork, and threw them all out.

The pic above is of the stadium’s grandstand. Notice all the black faces? That’s right. Griffith Stadium was segregated in the 1950’s. So were the movie theaters (blacks sat upstairs) and so were the public schools.

We moved from D.C. to New York City in 1956 and in August or September of that year, my father and I went out to the minor league stadium in Jersey City to watch the Dodgers play the Braves.

Walter O’Malley, who owned the Dodgers, scheduled a handful of games in Jersey City, just to make it clear that he could move his team anywhere he wanted them to play.

So, Dad and I get to the stadium, and the park was sold out but we could stand behind a fence in the outfield which is what we did — Dad found an old…