[2][3] This left the owners of the Washington Senators in a difficult situation, since spring training had already begun and opening day was less than a month away.

Thomas C. Noyes, president of the Senators, gained approval from the club's board of directors to build a new ballpark with a steel grandstand on the same site as Boundary Field.

The quick construction of the ballpark was reported by The Washington Post: "Day and night the chanting of the negro laborers has been heard in the vicinity, like Aladdin's palace, the structure rose as if by magic.

"[3] Opening Day 1911, the grandstand was sufficiently stable to host President William Howard Taft and the Boston Red Sox, as well as 16,000 fans.

The Senators' groundskeepers maintained a downhill slope from home plate to first base, supposedly to help accelerate slow Washington batters.

In the early 1920s, a trend began of fans flocking in great numbers to the stadium to see baseball's rising stars from opposing teams; when the New York Yankees came to Washington, the chance to see Babe Ruth brought large crowds to the ballpark.

[1] Following the trend of ballparks being named for their teams' owners, that August announcement included renaming the venue Clark Griffith Stadium.

The new upper section was wider than the old, resulting in a roofline that was considerably higher than the roof of the main grandstand, leaving a visible 15-foot (4.6 m) gap between the two.

Both versions of the tall fence had the effect of keeping the neighbors in the adjacent row houses from watching the games for free.

[11] The right-field fence was originally covered in various billboard advertisements, but in later years was painted a solid dark green.

[12] Every president of the United States from William Howard Taft to John F. Kennedy threw a ceremonial first pitch at least once at Griffith.

[14] Franklin D. Roosevelt was a good friend of Clark Griffith, and had attended games at the stadium since his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the 1910s.

[3] On Opening Day 1941, Roosevelt stood up in the stadium's presidential box on the arm of a military aide, and threw out the first pitch.

[15] The distant fences were no problem for sluggers like Josh Gibson, Mickey Mantle, and the Senators' own youngster Harmon Killebrew.

In May 1949, Cleveland Indians outfielder Larry Doby smacked the then-longest home run ever hit at the stadium over the right-center field wall and onto a rooftop well outside the ballpark.

The hapless Washington team became the butt of a well-known vaudeville joke: "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League", a twist on the famous Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee eulogy of George Washington: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" (a similar phrasing was once used for the St. Louis Browns: "First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League.")

[20] The stadium was still called Griffith Stadium in 1961, even though team owner Calvin Griffith had moved the original Senators club to the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul (becoming the Minnesota Twins), to be replaced in Washington by a new expansion team, also called the Senators (now the Texas Rangers).

[16] The stadium was the host of an annual Thanksgiving Day game between Howard and Lincoln Universities, which was one of the most popular events during the year, drawing many African-American alumni and fans from the surrounding neighborhoods.

According to Richard Whittingham's history of the Chicago Bears (ISBN 0671628852), George Preston Marshall, the owner of the Redskins, gave his team a pre-game pep talk that consisted simply of writing "73–0" on the chalkboard.

During the Redskins' game on the afternoon of December 7, 1941, against the Philadelphia Eagles, an announcement was made over Griffith Stadium's public-address system commanding all of the American generals and admirals there to report to their duty stations.

[28] Gospel's first superstar, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was married in Griffith Stadium in 1951 - in what was a legally binding PR stunt - in front of some 20,000 paying guests.

[29] Griffith Stadium was located in LeDroit Park, a historically black area of Washington since the Civil War.

The neighborhood was home to many black working-class people, but also a class of young professional African-American "elites" including Langston Hughes.

[1] Griffith Stadium was not officially segregated, although an unofficial policy early after the 1920s expansion was that blacks sat in the right field pavilion.

[1] Senators management, seemingly uneasy about racial matters, were latecomers to integrating their team, adding their first black player, outfielder Carlos Paula, in 1954 - 7 years after Jackie Robinson had debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[32] The American League opposed a move at first, but agreed under the condition that an expansion team, also named the Senators, would come to Washington, beginning in 1961.