WASHINGTON - The greatest moment in Washington Senators history came courtesy of a pebble.

In the 12th inning of Game 7 of the 1924 World Series, Earl McNeely hit a ground ball that found a tiny rock and bounced over third baseman Fred Lindstrom's head. Muddy Ruel scored from second, giving the Senators the only Series title in the franchise's mostly sad history.

"The good Lord just couldn't bear to see a fine fellow like Walter Johnson lose again," said Jack Bentley, the losing pitcher that day for the New York Giants.

Johnson, of course, was one of the all-time greats, winner of 417 games. He lost two starts earlier in the series, but fans began chanting for him late in Game 7 and got their wish when he entered in relief in the ninth inning and earned the victory that set off euphoria in the nation's capital.

"In Griffith Stadium, the crowd catapulted out of the stands to thrash onto the field and to dance on the dugout roofs, refusing to leave the park until long after nightfall," The Washington Post's Shirley Povich wrote in 1994, recalling his memories of the game in a 70th anniversary column.

They had to celebrate while they could. Other than a few isolated highlights over the decades, the Senators were mostly about losing: "First in war, first in peace, last in the American League," as the saying went. The only bragging point in Washington is that its world championship _ although it was 80 years ago _ is at least more recent that those last won by the Chicago Cubs or the Boston Red Sox.

The celebrations began anew this week when Major League Baseball announced that the Montreal Expos will play in Washington next year, ending a drought that had lasted since the expansion Senators became the Texas Rangers after the 1971 season.

Fans can only hope the transplanted Expos can do better than their D.C. predecessors.

The original Senators, also known as the Nationals or Nats, were in Washington from 1901-60. They had a losing record each of their first 11 seasons, and for 23 of their last 27. The glory years were 1912-15 under manager Clark Griffith, who would later own the team; 1924-27 under Bucky Harris; and 1930-33 under Johnson and Joe Cronin. They won the American League pennant in 1925 and 1933, but lost the World Series to the Pirates and Giants, respectively.

The subsequent struggles of the 1940s and 1950s took their toll. Griffith's son, Calvin, cited sagging attendance when he moved the franchise to Minnesota after the 1960 season. The idea of not having a team in the nation's capital didn't sit well with President Eisenhower or Congress, so baseball swung a deal that put a new expansion Senators team in Washington as soon as the old one left.

The new Senators were just as bad, with their only winning season coming in 1969 under rookie manager Ted Williams. Frank Howard was the only real superstar on the field, twice leading the American League in home runs. The team played at RFK Stadium, next to a residential neighborhood many blocks from downtown _ and before the subway was built. It was tough to attract fans.

"Keep in mind there were only about a million people in the area at the time," longtime public address announcer Charlie Brotman said. "Transportation was not good. It was inconvenient. And we had, I have to say, a bad product."

Owner Bob Short, citing many of the same reasons Griffith did more than a decade earlier, moved the team to Texas, but not before a final outcry. The last Senators game ended with angry fans invading the field in the ninth inning, turning a 7-5 Senators lead into a 9-0 forfeit for the New York Yankees.

Before the modern era, there were other "major league" teams in Washington: the Olympics, the Nationals and the Statesmen played in various leagues in the late 1800s.

But the best team ever to call Washington home didn't really belong to the city. The Homestead Grays might have been the greatest Negro League team, winning nine consecutive Negro National League championships from 1937 to 1945.

The Grays' lineup was filled with Hall of Famers, including Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Buck Leonard. The team's real "home" was Pittsburgh, but the Grays split their schedule and played many games before large crowds at Washington's Griffith Stadium in the 1930s and 1940s.

That's why Mayor Anthony Williams is pushing for Washington's new team to be named the Grays. As for "Senators" _ Williams isn't a fan of that name because the District of Columbia doesn't have seats in the U.S. Senate.

"We don't have senators here," the mayor said. "Give us two senators, and I'll be happy to call them 'the Senators.'"