The Old Fox Borrows: A $40,000 Promissory Note Signed by Clark Griffith, Washington Base Ball Club, October 1951

Clark Griffith ran the Washington Senators for most of his adult life, and this note shows how. It’s a ninety-day promissory note for $40,000, issued through the National Metropolitan Bank of Washington on October 16, 1951, and signed by Griffith with the “Washington Base Ball Club” given as his address. It carries 3% interest and was due January 14, 1952, with period bank stamps and handwritten interest calculations still visible. The timing places it near the end of a miserable year. The 1951 Senators finished 62-92 and seventh in the American League, managed by Bucky Harris, with Griffith as majority owner. Griffith was 81 and, after nearly 70 years in baseball, still handling the club’s bills himself, even in a season when the team was far from contending.

Griffith’s finances were famously tight, and the team could be run on thin margins. He mortgaged nearly all of his assets in 1912 to buy a 10 percent stake in the Senators, and by 1920 he had moved upstairs to the owner’s box after a 20-year managerial career with 1,491 wins. The Senators turned a profit for 21 consecutive years, thanks in large part to hosting football games, Negro League games, and other special events at Griffith Stadium. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1946, and continued as team president until his death on October 27, 1955. After that, the club passed to his adopted son, Calvin, who moved it to Minnesota as the Twins. A signed note from the last years of the Griffith era, tied to the franchise by name and address, is a quiet piece of the financial side of baseball’s early business history.