Harrisburg Senators Totally Explained

Everything about Harrisburg Senators totally explained

The Harrisburg Senators are a minor league baseball team based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The team, which plays in the Eastern League, is the AA affiliate of the Washington Nationals. The Senators play in Commerce Bank Park, located on City Island in Harrisburg; originally opened in 1987 as Riverside Stadium, the stadium seats 6,302 fans. The "Senators" nickname refers to the host city being the capital and thus home of the Pennsylvania legislature. The team colors are red, navy blue, and gold, the same colors of the parent club, the Washington Nationals.
Harrisburg has won nine Eastern League titles and is the first team in league history to win four titles in a row: 1927, 1928, 1931, 1987, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999.

Franchise history

The city of Harrisburg has a long history of professional baseball. In 1901, the first baseball club in Harrisburg was created. In 1912, Harrisburg won the first of three Tri-State Association championships in a row. In 1915, an affilitated International League team moved from Newark, New Jersey to Harrisburg. The club lasted one year before moving to the New York State League, and disbanding. This left the city without professional baseball for seven years.

The original Senators

In 1924, the first incarnation of the Senators joined the newly formed New York-Penn League, which was eventually renamed the Eastern League. Initially, the Senators and most of the other New York-Penn League teams were not affiliated with a Major League Baseball team. In 1925, Joe Munson hit a .400 batting average, a record which stands to this day in Senators history, and 33 home runs, a Senators record that wasn't broken until 1999. In 1927, the Senators started a five-year campaign with three Eastern league championships, winning titles in 1927, 1928, and 1931. The year 1932 brought the Senators an affiliation with the Boston Braves. The original Harrisburg Senators' reign ended in 1936, when flood waters from the surrounding Susquehanna River ruined their home ballpark, Island Field. The flood effectively ended Eastern League participation for the next fifty-one years.
Another team representing Harrisburg affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates formed four years later, though in the smaller Interstate League. Like the Senators before it, the team gained success quickly, winning the league title one year later with stars Billy Cox and Dennis Taylor. The success, however, was short lived, as the team moved to nearby York in 1943. Another team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians was created, but wasn't as successful. The Interstate League disbanded this Harrisburg team in 1952, and any form of professional baseball wasn't played in the city for the next 35 years.

The current Senators

In the mid 1980s, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed initiated a revitalization plan that included a ballpark for a new Minor League Baseball team in the city. In 1987, Harrisburg opened Commerce Bank Park (then known as Riverside Stadium) to the current Senators of the Eastern League, originally affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates. This franchise was moved to Harrisburg from Nashua, New Hampshire, and had also played in the Massachusetts cities of Holyoke and Pittsfield.
Like the original Senators, success was quick, winning the Eastern League championship in its very first season. In 1991, affiliation shifted from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Montreal Expos, an affiliation continuing through that team's move to Washington, D.C. The first several years of affiliation with Montreal brought four consecutive championships from 1996 to 1999, an Eastern League first. In 2003, Sueng Song pitched the first no-hitter in modern Senators history.

Uniforms and logo

Image:Harrisburg Senators II.PNG|Senators former logo, 1987-2005 Image:HBGSenators.PNG|Senators primary, 2006-present The official colors of the Harrisburg Senators are red, navy blue and metallic gold. The home and away uniforms resemble those of the Washington Nationals, with a red cap for home games and navy blue for away. Both caps include the "H" and streaking baseball logo, with the "H" in the same script as the Nationals' pretzel-shaped "W." The white home jerseys include red and navy blue trim around the collar and sleeves with the "Senators" wordmark in red with metallic gold bevels and navy blue outline. The grey away jersey has navy blue and red trim around the collar and sleeves, with the "Harrisburg" wordmark in navy blue with metallic gold bevels and red outline. Both wordmarks are identical to the Nationals brand.
In 2007, the Senators added a unique logo to their brand, incorporating the prevalent and much reviled mayfly into the "H." Because of Commerce Bank Park's location on City Island in the Susquehanna River, thousands of mayflies are attracted to the ballpark's bright lights and die. The dead mayflies fall onto the fans below, obscuring their view.

Ownership

The city of Harrisburg paid $6.7 million in 1995 to acquire the team from the previous owners of the franchise, who were planning to move the team to a new taxpayer-financed ballpark in Springfield, Massachusetts. Instead of appeasing the desires of the ownership group with a new stadium, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed lead the city of Harrisburg to purchase the team instead. The previous owners had bought the team only six months earlier for just $4.1 million. Citing the ballpark as the major link in his downtown revitalization project, when asked how he could afford the hefty price tag, Mayor Reed responded by asking, "how could we not?" For a time, the Senators remained one of the only sports franchises in the United States to be completely owned by the community it's based in. In 2006, the city put the team up for sale to combat a major budget deficit. Mayor Reed stipulated that the new owner must keep the team in Harrisburg for at least 29 years. One of the hangups with the agreement was that a buyer for the AA Senators franchise had to be found. The Ottawa franchise moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania as the AAA team for the Philadelphia Phillies, renamed as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.

Broadcast

Every Harrisburg Senators ballgame is aired on 1460 the Ticket (AM 1460 WTKT - Clear Channel). The games are also streamed on the team's website senatorsbaseball.com. Some games are also aired on the local TV station, CN8.

Roster

Prominent Senators that made the Major Leagues

The players listed below had at one time or another, played for the Senators before going on to the Major Leagues.

Milton Bradley

Brian Schneider

Chris YoungTeam records

Season records

This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Senators. For the full season-by-season history, see Harrisburg Senators seasons

Year (affiliation)	Wins	Losses	Winning Pct.	GB (Division Standing)	Manager
2004 (Montreal Expos)	52	90	.366	-33.5 (6th out of 6 in Southern Division)	Dave Machemer
2005 (Washington Nationals)	64	78	.451	-20 (5th out of 6 in Southern Division)	Keith Bodie
2006 (Washington Nationals)	67	75	.472	-20 (5th out of 6 in Southern Division)	John Stearns
2007 (Washington Nationals)	55	86	.390	-26.5 (6th out of 6 in Southern Division)	Scott Little
2008 (Washington Nationals)	29	18	.617	-1.5 (2nd out of 6 in Southern Division)	John Stearns
CURRENT SENATORS TOTAL	1547	1451	.516
ALL TIME TOTAL	2375	2250	.514

- in GB is behind, + in GB is ahead Bold years are Eastern League Championship years

Individual Season Records

Batting Records
Games	141	Jamie Carroll	1999
At Bats	565	Brandon Watson	2003
Runs	134	Lawrence Fischer	1932
Hits	198	Horace McBride	1930
Total Bases	355	Joe Munson	1925
Doubles	40	Horace McBride	1930
Triples	21	Horace McBride	1930
Home Runs	37	Andy Tracy	1999
RBI	129	Joe Munson	1925
Walks	93	Val Pascucci	2002
Strikeouts	139	Andy Tracy	1999
Sacrifices	30	Glenn Killinger	1928
Sacrifice Flies	11	Lance Belen	1988
Stolen Bases	52	Jim Reboulet	1987
Batting Average	.400	Joe Munson	1925

Pitching Records
Games	60	Alberto Reyes	1994
Complete Games	22	Louis Polli	1927
Shutouts	5	Louis Polli	1927
Wins	23	Clint Brown	1928
Losses	18	Clint Parkes	1929
Saves	35	Alberto Reyes	1994
Innings	292	Charles Parkes	1929
Walks	130	Bill Dietrich	1931
Strikeouts	161	Ronald Chiavacci	2001
ERA	2.15	Clint Brown	1928

All info from 2007 Eastern League Media Guide

Further Information

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