Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC, was the second stadium to stand on the lot where Boundary Park, also known as National Park, and it's occupants, the Nationals, stood from 1891-1911 when the mostly-wooden stadium was seriously damaged by fire. Rebuilt on the same ground, and later renamed for former Senators' star and then, in 1920, owner, "The Old Fox" Clark Griffith, Griffith Stadium's construction began in 1911...
...and if you think the current owners of the Washington Nationals were pushing it by starting the construction of the new Nationals Park before they had completed the designs, and still continuing with construction three months before Opening Night, then consider the 1911 Senators' owners, who, according to ballparksofbaseball.com and their Griffith Stadium profile, began the 1911 season with their new park under construction around them, and finished building the park as the season progressed...
http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/past/GriffithStadium.htm
...Two versions of the Senators combined to spend fifty years in Griffith Stadium from 1911-1961 when the second Senators moved to the District of Columbia Stadium which was renamed RFK Stadium in 1969. Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965, four years after the Senators had moved to their new stadium on the Anacostia River.
The second Senators played ten years in RFK Stadium before abandoning DC after the 1971 season, and the District would have to wait thirty-three years for the return of Major League Baseball in the form of the Ex-Expos, also known as the Washington Nationals. The Nationals played in RFK Stadium from 2005-2007 and now move just south down the Anacostia to officially open what is being called for now, Nationals Park on March 30, 2008.
Tickets to Opening Night in DC, which will see the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals open the '08 MLB season on ESPN, are going for anywhere from $115.00 for seats in the Upper Right Field Terrace to $1,506 bucks a piece for you and a friend to sit in an infield box down the third base line on an unnamed ticketbroker...
(and $159.00 to $2,175.00 on another site <<<<)
I guess I'll have to wake up early on the day single game tickets go on sale...
HOK Sport is building the new Nationals Park...they're also responsible for all these projects...
http://www.hoksport.com/projects/index.html
The dimensions of Nationals Park...
Left Field - 332 ft
Left-Center - 364 ft
Left-Center (deep) - 370 ft
Center Field - 409 ft
Right-Center - 377 ft
Right Field - 335 ft
The dimensions of RFK Stadium...
Left Field- 335 ft
Left-Center- 380 ft
Center Field- 410 ft
Right-Center- 380 ft
Right Field- 335 ft
Backstop- 54 ft
The dimensions of Griffith Stadium(once completed)...
Left Field - 388 ft
Left-Center - 360 ft
Center Field - 421 ft
Right-Center - 373 ft
Right Field - 320 ft
Backstop - 61 ft
421 ft. to center?...What would Jose Guillen have to say about that?...
*DC Park History Links*
wikipedia.org's Griffith Stadium page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_Stadium
wikipedia.org's Clark Griffith profile:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Griffith
wikipedia.org's profile of RFK Stadium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Memorial_Stadium
an article by mlb.com's Bill Ladson entitled, "Nats get tour of their new stadium", at washington.nationals.mlb.com:
washington.nationals.mlb.com's profile of Nationals Park:
http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/was/ballpark/index.jsp
HOK Sport: