Wes Singletary, Baseball Author and Florida Baseball Historian

 Welcome to Baseball Biz On Deck. I'm Mark Corbett, and this week, Baseball Biz On Deck is offsite, working on a couple different projects. It's the day after Veterans Day. It's November 12th, 2026. And on Veterans Day, I always think of some of the players who've been in the game, whether it be from Ted Williams to Griffin Jax. Uh, quite a history on each one of those, and we should probably do some more profiles on, on veterans in the game. But I also think of the, uh, American Legion teams and the history there as well. So not surprisingly, the h- baseball historian, or historian generally, and that's, uh, Wes Singletary. Wes has been on the show in the past, on the Florida Baseball Biz, uh, last November, and he recounts all kinds of great stories, whether we're talking about the American Legion teams, we're talking about Al Lopez, talking about John Henry Pop Lloyd, who, uh, I referenced earlier in a interview with Bob Kendricks, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. There's a lot of stories that Wes can tell as a historian and a lover of the game, and he certainly did last November. So we're gonna go ahead and replay that episode this week. So let's get started. Welcome to Florida Baseball Biz. I'm Mark Corbett, your host, and with me, of course, is somebody... We always have great guests. This is Mr. Wes Singletary. Wes, how you doing, buddy? We're doing good up here in Tallahassee. It's a little cooler up here. Okay. When I thought of Tallahassee when I was a younger man, I would always think of these Friday mornings listening to NPR, and the old redhead was on there, and he was talking with, uh, Bob Edwards. Yeah, Colonels. Bob Edwards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the magnolias, the magnolias. The w- the, the, the... What'd he'd say? The, um- You know, the camellias are blooming, Colonel. I see. That's lovely. Yeah, we're talking about Red Barber and Bob Edwards there long ago. But man, I loved just a little- I had a chance to meet him once. I had a professor at Florida State named Bill Rogers, incredible professor, and he would have his 1920s class, he would have Red Barber come out. It was actually 1920 to 1945. He called it his Jazz Age class. And Red Barber would come out every year, and he'd talk about working with the Dodgers and Jackie and all that. And, uh, it was just incredible to meet him. Well, Wes, I'm so glad to have you on here. I, I gotta tell you, I, I met you when I s- was doing a little bit down there with the Tampa Baseball Museum, and one of the first things I discovered were your books. You know, you had a book there on Al Lopez. You had a, a book there on, uh, John Henry Lloyd. You had one on the major leaguers who came from Florida. Those are the ones I remember, and I was enthralled with them. So I immediately had to go and put them on, put them on my Kindle, brother, and start digging into the ones ... I think, uh, I think the Florida baseball one, that one, I think I had to get a hard copy of, but the others I think were Kindle. Hedia Press actually bought the, uh, the publisher that did the, uh, Florida's First Big Leaguers, and that one's all over the place now. It's so funny. It was ... I never thought it would be a book because it got ... Al told me one time, Al Lopez told me one time that he thought he was the first guy from Florida to make it to the big leagues, and he really was the first guy from Florida to make a name for himself- Yeah uh, in the, in the white organized big leagues. But, um, he was the 13th guy born in Florida to make it to the majors. And, uh, so it got me thinking, you know, well, let's say before 1950, it's kind of arbitrary figure, but, you know, you look at the way Florida's changed before and after 1950, especially with regard to population. Uh, so I started looking, thinking how many guys from Florida before 1950, and there were 20, uh, six, and only eight of them were still alive. So I just tracked them all down, and I'd already talked to Al plenty. You know, I tracked all the others down, including Charlie Quarles from Tampa, and Emmanuel Oneas from Tampa, and, uh, Bitsy Mott, uh, was from Sarasota, but he was around, uh, Tampa a lot. And, um, got to know all of them, and I interviewed them all. And gr- ult- you know, it- I would publish their interviews in different journals and so forth. And then when Al passed away, he was the oldest of those eight survivors, but he outlived them all. And when he passed away, I had some publishers talk to me if I had all the, um, the interviews, like in a first person narrative, and that's what I did. It's kind of a smaller version of The Glory of Their Times, the seminal, uh, book by, uh, Lawrence Ritter, one of my favorite baseball books ever. I just love it. I could read it every year, every year. I put it together, and it's, it really meant a lot to me to do that for those guys. And, uh, it's still out there, and people enjoy reading it, and I'm happy to, I'm happy for the, for the guys that were told their story in that book, for sure. Well, it's still on Amazon, I know that, and I found it here in, here in the Hillsborough Library in, uh, Tampa as well. I saw that at the museum. The museum sells it. Yeah, we sell it there. The museum is so nice to me. I mean, they sell all my books in there, especially around Christmastime. The Al Lopez book, they, they always keep those on stock, and they even do the Pop Lloyd book, and there's no real connection to Tampa, uh, other than me, you know? I'm a big Tampa guy, born and raised down there, so you know. Well, well, tell us a little bit about yourself then. I mean, as far as, as I know you live up in Tallahassee now and you've had your professional career up there, but as far as growing up, it was Tampa's where you started, right? Oh, yeah, born and raised in Tampa. I, I went... I grew up right behind Jesuit High School over there on St. Vincent Street, and I went to Tampa Bay Boulevard School in elementary school. Then they changed the district. It's so funny. I knew a bunch of guys at Wellswood where I played baseball. Well, s- I played at Wellswood. It, it's just funny. We'd have guys from West Tampa playing at Wellswood, and I knew guys from Wellswood that were playing at West Tampa, but we were the two big rivals, and then whoever would win out of these two leagues would go play Belmont Heights. I mean, it was some good baseball for little kids. And then we'd all go to school together, you know, and it would break into Hillsborough-Jefferson. And, you know, then during the all-star tournaments, we'd get down and we'd play, like, the kids that would end up at Plant or Robinson or somewhere. But, um, when I was going into, I think, fifth grade, they decided everybody north of, uh, Buffalo, which is MLK now, would, uh, end up going to Mendenhall. It was over in Wellswood instead of Tampa Bay Boulevard. And then desegregation came, so they, they took all of us and sent us to Bryan over, like, on 28th Street, and then brought us all back to Oak Grove on Armenia in seventh grade, and then they had closed the historic, uh, African American schools, Blake and Middleton, and turned Middleton into- Yeah ... an eighth and ninth grade school. Sent all of us back there for eighth and ninth grade, and then brought us back to, like, Hillsborough in the middle, and that was all from, like, where I lived, 'cause I moved into Wellswood right across Armenia in about ninth grade. And so, I mean, I'm born and raised in Tampa and I think I changed schools six, seven times- Jeez, me either over all that. And, you know, the longest was Tampa Bay Boulevard. I, I was there, uh, four years, so. You know, and, and it's interesting 'cause you brought up Blake, and I, before we started recording, I was mentioning, uh, uh, Apolito Arenas, and he was, you know, an African American player, uh, in the Negro Leagues, and he also did a lot with youth baseball around here with, uh, the Harness. And I know they had a ... They had a field adjacent to where Blake High School is now and where the Tampa Suns are playing. Actually, they've relocated that field. The city did that, I guess, with all the other development. And it just goes to my mind when you're talking about all these changes from moving from school to school, that actually the geography, the face of what Tampa is, seems to continue to change, and you re- revisit- Well, that's because Tampa was small. Yeah. You know, I graduated high school in 1978. Florida had three and a half million people in it , you know? I tell my students now, I say, "Can you imagine? Florida had three and a half million people, and we got twen- close to 23 million now. That's 1,000 people a day moving here." Jeez. They wanna build a border, put one up here along between Thomasville and Tallahassee, you know? Build a wall to keep the Canadians out, at least. Wow. The Latins work, you know? That's no offense, but God. Wow. It's craziness. Well, I, I wanted to talk to you a bit about something you'd been involved with for many years, because right now we're ... the American Legion is celebrating the centennial of the, of their own baseball league, and it's amazing to see how they've expanded. I gotta tell you, though, Wes, I mean, you're a historian. You know all of this. But, uh, at ... I would have presumed, before I did any homework, that Little League had been around before American Legion. But actually, the American Legion was probably about at least 15 years ahead of when the Little League Association came around. So- Yeah. American Legion Ball, that's up on 100 years now. Yeah. And yeah, Little L- Little League Incorporated, you know, that's ... They first started kind of official, making it official what was going on in the sandlots and so forth, you know, prior to that, so. But American Legion Ball's been around a long time. Small town. You go to a town like Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I've spent a lot of time in my life, 'cause when I went in the Air Force I was stationed out there, and you go to Cheyenne right now and they've got a, a ballpark that's built for the American Legion team, that if they wanted to put a minor league team in Cheyenne they could play there. It's that nice. They would just have to put more seats in. You go throughout the Midwest and areas of the, the Rocky Mountains, and American Legion Baseball is still the game, you know, for those towns. That's all they have. And they turn out. It, it really is incredible when you get out there. Well, I'm really glad to see that. I know when I was a y- youngster, I knew there was community ball, but I also knew this American Legion field nearby. So it was like a half mile away from where there was six other diamonds. So we would walk over there if we... We could always find a game to watch, either in the community ball over there, in, in the c- city I grew up with or over there at the American- What ridge you were on? Louisville, Kentucky, and specifically Shively, a small little city, but- That's right. You, you told me that 'cause we talked about Lullo coaching up there. Yeah. That's right. Yep. Yeah, but it, it was a, it's a lot of fun. And b- what, uh, looking back though, with American Legion, see, I was even surprised to see names like La Russa and Pinella. I think they both were in there, I mean, as far as, as long as we're talking about Tampa. Yeah. And I guess I- Well, they grew up playing together and, you know, except for high school. Well, yeah, and they what? They just celebrate the 35th anniversary of their World Series facing off one another as managers. Al Lopez thought that was the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. I, I can still remember Al talking about he was beaming with pride, just buzzing. You know, he said, "You have got two good kids. They grew up together. You know, one from Ybor City, one from West Tampa. They played together Legion ball, and they're managing against each other in the World Series. My God, you'll never see that again." And I mean, I can't talk about Al without almost trying to imitate him because I can hear him in my head still. And, uh, he was just amazed. And then it wasn't that long after that, you had Tino and Luis Gonzalez playing against each other in the, in the 2001 World Series. And it's... Tampa, I, you know, for y- I can't say it enough how many arguments I've had with people over the years. Tell them, and you don't... You, you think you know Tampa baseball, and you don't have a clue. Yeah. You know, I can take you right down the list of ballplayers and, o- of any game, any World Series, any All-Star game, and just start pointing at kids from Tampa. And, and you'd be shocked. You just don't realize it. "Oh, yeah, you guys don't support the Rays." No, we don't get, we don't get on bridges. That's what it is. We don't get on bridges during rush hour. You know, that's, you know. And then plus you add to that the provincialism that's always been there. I grew up in Tampa. St. Pete's over there, man. Bradenton, Sarasota's down there. The bay is the water. And then, and there's something to be said for that, I'm sorry. You talk to Mario Nunez, and he'll get into that with you in a minute. You know, we're Tampeños. You know, we support Tampa. Yeah. So, uh, there's a lot to it that goes on. But, um, yeah, there's, there's more baseball down there than any town I can think of. I will be curious to see if there's a realignment with the folks who've just seen the St. Pete Rays, if you will, compared to it, once they bring that, those, that team over here on this side of the water. And- They'll stay over there. They won't come to Tampa. Ah, geez. I'm telling you. Man. It, it's always been this way. And, and they'll s- you know, uh, even though so many people have moved from the outside, you know. What I'd like to see is just- People start rooting for Tampa instead of all the Red Sox fans and the Yankees fans. Oh, Mark. You know, people move here and they keep their loyalties, and I understand that, and it takes a while. But as long as you have the Yankees living in Tampa- Yeah ... you know, that's gonna be the deal. You gotta get the Yankees out of there. I'm sorry. They gotta go. You need to build a team for the, for the Rays in Tampa, tell the Yanks to hit the skids, get on down the road somewhere. It's just no other team has a professional team training in their city That's just how it works. And, uh, I understand they've been doing it a long time, but it's time for them to move on. I agree. Uh, it's been, it has been a hard row with that. I know when I went to any Rays-Yankees game there at the Trop, it was almost obscene the number of Yankees fans that were there in the stands compared to Rays fans. And a lot of that is because of transplant. I'm a transplant, but there's a lot of people transplant from New York, from Boston, et cetera, have come down here. And like you said, they maintain a loyalty to their original team. And- I was a Yank- hey, I was a Yankees fan my whole life. I mean, the first Little League team I ever played on, it was the Little League, was the Yankees. Yeah. And I was always a Yankees fan. I've never liked the Red Sox because of that, because I was a Yankees player on my first Little team, and you always remember your first hate. So I've never been a Red Sox fan. But, uh, gradually, you know, over the years, you know, the Rays came along, and it took a while. The day the Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez, I said, "I can't do it anymore." And, uh, I told somebody, "I'm gonna root for the worst team in baseball." And he said, "Well, they're from your hometown." And I said, "Well, actually they're from St. Petersburg, but you got a point." And that's, I started following them pretty closely. But, uh, you know, w- r- writing the book about Al, too, kind of made it hard to root for the Yankees- ... 'cause, you know, he was the, he was the threadbare sombrero, you know what I mean? Señor in the threadbare sombrero, chasing the Yankees all those years. And so, um, you know, uh, there's a lot of things that went into it. Well, I remember reading your book and it talking about how his, uh, his former manager, you know, he was kind of ... Once Al became a manager, it's like he was gonna go ahead and kinda put it to him, too. That he was gonna show them both, I guess, when he was managing the White Soxs and then also the Indians that, uh, he kinda put the push down on the Yankees there, didn't he? He's the only guy in 16 years that beat them for the pennant. The only guy. I mean, the ... My favorite story there was Al was telling everybody, this was in '54 with the Indians, telling everybody he had the team, he had the pitching to take the Yankees that year. And of course, the reporters run to Stengel, Casey Stengel, and s- uh, told him what Al was saying. And Stengel's like, "Did the, did the Mexican say that?" And, you know, Stengel and Al Lopez were great friends. They were business partners. They ... Al had played for Stengel. They loved each other. "But did the Mexican say that? Well, you tell the Señor unless my brain rots or my team gets hit by a truck, they're not gonna win. The Yankees are." And, uh, so the Indians rip off 111 games, and the Yankees won 103 games and finished eight games back. Oh. You know? And they asked Stengel about it, and he says, "Well, you know, the Señor beat me, and you can look it up." I love it. That was another time, the way they talked about each other, that's for sure And then at 59, Al got him again. But neither time Al won the World Series. And I ask Al, "What happened?" You know, 111 games, you get swept four games in the '54 World Series. And he says, "We hit a slump." He goes, "I don't think we had a slump all year long. We get to the World Series, we couldn't do anything right. And, you know, Mays makes that catch off Wertz, and Dusty Rhodes hits that little nothing fly, you know, home run down to the right s- field corner there. It just, it didn't work out for us. You know, that happens in baseball." I say, "Yeah, it does." Yeah, it's... Yeah, that's baseball. That's, that's my answer to a lot of things when somebody brings up something insane. I said, "That's baseball." It is. You cannot plan enough for that, whether it be injuries, whether it be weather, whatever. There are so many variables that you cannot control. But, uh, I, I gotta tell you, working at the museum, I do sometimes when I'm there have fans that from the White Sox and then also, um, from Cleveland as well. And I had I had some fans from the White Sox. They said, "We're still mad at Al." I said, "What?" They said, "We're still at- mad at Al. Well, he didn't- I know why. I can tell you why. Right now, the, the- he would not support Nellie Fox to get into the Hall of Fame. That was a big part of it. Those White Sox fans for years did, would, were mad at Al 'cause he would not vote for Nellie Fox in the Hall of Fame, and Nellie did not go into the Hall of Fame until Al came off the Veterans Committee. Wow. Wow. That was a big part of it. And Al Fox, nothing. Great player. Great player. Wouldn't spo- wouldn't support him. Just didn't think he was a Hall of Famer I keep wondering about the Veterans Committee. I'm, I'm one, while I love that we honor our players in the Hall of Fame, but there's sometimes I just feel like there's some pettiness about who's gonna be inducted or not. Because I see, I keep looking at Lou Piniella, and I'm saying- Lou missed it by one vote? Yeah. I mean, he should've been in the next year. Yeah. You know? It's stunning to me to start it. I, uh, Lou's one of my favorite guys. I met him ... The first time I ever met Lou, my stepfather knew him from, like, being a kid. My stepfather knew his father. And when my, uh, mother married my stepfather, I told Raymond, "I, uh, you know," I didn't have much use for my stepfather at the time, and I was like, "Yeah, well get me Lou's autograph. You know him, big timer," you know? Well, my stepfather saw Lou at the dog track or something, and Lou's like, "What do you, what do you want my autograph for?" And I guess Lou told him, "Just bring him by the house." And so one day my stepfather, I was probably about eighth grade, said, "Come on." He used to call me Junior. "Come on, Junior, let's go somewhere." And we got in the car and we took a ride over to Temple Terrace, and Lou come out. He had, like, this little Lhasa Apso dog come out on the porch. And- ... I couldn't believe it. I was slack-jawed, you know? And you know, had us in for a little bit, and we were talking baseball, and the Yankees had just traded Bobby Bonds for, uh, Ed Figueroa and Mickey Rivers. And, you know, I didn't know it, but the Yankees were headed to the first World Series in years that next season, you know? And Al, uh, Lou gave me an autographed ball, had all, had my hero Thurman Munson's had signed it, and- Oh, wow ... Catfish Hunter. And I mean, that was a big thing, so I w- I'd just been in love with Lou Piniella for years. You talk about managing American Legion teams, I was like Lou Piniella American Legion. Uh, umpire bait and son of a gun. No. No, he's, he's a fierce individual, I know in the past. I've, I've had the pleasure of meeting him once or twice, but my gosh. No, the, the Heirs Committee's, it's fallen short as far as I'm concerned with him. And that's why I have mixed feelings a lot of times with the whole Hall of Fame thing. It's just, eh, well, I don't wanna go down that road 'cause I'll be angry for another 10 minutes. Have you watched a- have you watched any of that, uh, Alex Rodriguez documentary? No, not yet. Lou looks really good in that. He, uh, he's, he's on there because, you know, he managed Rodriguez for so many years when Al, when, uh, A-Rod first came up. And he does a really good job talking about Alex Rodriguez and his, his career and his merits of the Hall of Famer, um, regardless of the issues and so forth. And I was real proud of Lou. He came across real well Well, I'm glad to hear. I'm not surprised. I hadn't seen this, but I did get a, a obscure text from a friend. I hadn't talked to him in a while. He says, "Wow, Lou Piniella." I thought, "Okay, what's your reference?" 'Cause I hadn't heard from the guy for anything. And he, and he sends me that. I think it's about the time the, the A-Rod thing came out, so that's something. Yeah. So right now, I know, and we talked about the books you've written as far as like with Al Lopez, uh, on the Florida baseball players, the history of those coming up with John Henry Lloyd. And what are you, what else are you working on right now? I'm researching one on, uh, Dick Lundy, Richard Lundy out of Jacksonville. On anyone's list, the top three shortstops of all time in Negro league baseball is, uh, Pop Lloyd, uh, Willie Wells, El Diablo they called him, and, uh, Dick Lundy, King Richard. Uh, Willie Wells and Pop Lloyd are in the Hall of Fame. Uh, Dick Lundy's not. I'd love to see him be in the Hall of Fame because for a generation, he was the best shortstop in the league. He was also a great baseball man. He was a longtime manager, but as a player, other great players wanted to play with him. Uh, he anchored the Million Dollar Infield with the Baltimore Stars. They also had Ghost Marcel at third base. They had Bingo DeMoss at second base and Boojum Wilson at first. I mean, it was one of the great Negro League teams. Wow. Uh, but he's from Jacksonville, like Pop Lloyd. Once he retired, he returned to Jacksonville, worked as a red cap there on the railroad station, and he passed away. He's living in a little c- he's buried in a little cemetery over there, not far from Rebold and Raines High School over there. And, um, you know, I'm, like I said, I'm doing some research on him. He's interesting. Uh, he's got a great grandson, uh, the Tony Award winner, uh, tap dancer on Broadway, Savion Glover. Uh, and it, I think it's just perfect because, uh, Richard, Dick Lundy was like a ballerina almost at shortstop. You know, I think a modern comparison would be somebody like Ozzie Smith, although Dick Lundy was a little bigger, probably hit the ball a little harder. But they had that same kind of footwork out there, and it just... Like, like some people said about Pop Lloyd, it didn't look like he was playing baseball. It looked like he was playing highlight. It was just effortless. Yeah. You know? I think, I think I'm, I'm looking forward to being able to finish up this stuff and, and doing some justice when I can actually start writing about him. Thinking back to Pop Lloyd, I was fascinated to, one, see the length of his career as a player and then as a coach. That man had a bit of longevity in, in, in what he did with. And he also- At the times, not surprisingly, because of, uh, just racism overall. But was he a waiter, like at a, a country club or somewhere- He was down at the Royal, the Royal Poinciana, the hotels, The Breakers, and the Royal Poinciana, the Flagler Hotels down in Palm Beach. And that's what would happen. The hotels would hire Negro league stars to come down there. They'd work as, as busboys and, and cabbies. You know, they'd literally pull like what you would call a rickshaw almost, and, uh, and work as busboys and waiters and so forth, work in the kitchen, and then they would play for the hotel teams. That's how they made money for a portion of the winter. So they'd play in their team- their league, they'd go to Cuba, they'd play there, they'd come back to work the hotel league in Palm Beach, and then they'd work back, barnstorm their way back north. And that's how Pop Lloyd got discovered. Uh, Sol White and, uh, you know, Rube Foster, others were coming through Palm Beach, and Pop Lloyd had been playing a little bit in Georgia, and he made his way down to Palm Beach, and he was playing there, and they took him back. They took him back with them up to, uh, Philadelphia, where he played his first year, I guess was like around 1906 You know, the sense has been- Had great players out there, you know. Oh, wow. You just... Yeah. Oh, yeah, what great baseball, huh? Living in one of them hotels, get to go out and watch those guys. Some of the best- players on the planet. Yeah, that, that guy carried my suitcases in there. Yeah. Oh, I know, Ca- I know. Can you imagine that today? That, oh, yeah, well, that was, uh, who- whoever's to, uh- Oh, thank God- Price Harper's carrying my- ... you know, we don't have to, you know? No, no, that's insanity. But- I mean, I'm just fascinated with the Negro Leagues, and you get out to Kansas City, I mean, you owe yourself a trip if you haven't been there. But, um, the, the Negro League Museum in Kansas City is just special, and the stuff that they're doing for research and the old YMCA building where the first contract of the first Negro League was signed. Uh, you know, Buck O'Neil was one of the founders- Yeah ... of that museum, and, and Bob Kendrick, the executive director there, you wanna see an ambassador for baseball, I don't think there's anybody better. They ought to make him the... Get rid of Manfred and make, make Bob Kendrick the commissioner of Major League Baseball, 'cause he's incredible. I, I go to that museum, and, uh, the first time I was ever there, I didn't tell him who I was. I, you know, not that he would know me, but he is familiar with my book. I just hadn't met him, man. I slipped in there, and I was just watching him, and he's leading tours around the museum and... But, man, dress... It's like he tells me when he met Buck O'Neil, Buck said, "You gotta up your game." And he starts dressing with these suits. Like, it just m- the dude is just on fire, and he knows his baseball and, you know, I just, I just was so impressed with it. And the way he runs that museum, and it's an incredible place, and I can't wait to get back out there. He does a g- a great podcast too, Black Diamonds. I'm sure you're familiar with it. And I, I had the, uh, chance to go on his show with him about, I don't know, maybe a year ago now and talk about Pop, and I had a lot of, lot of fun doing that. But, uh, that, the Negro Leagues is just something special to me. I really enjoy researching, digging in, 'cause boy, talk about being a, um, a forensic baseball you know, researcher when you're trying to put together from, like, line scores. 'Cause you might only get something one or two, two days a week in these weekly newspapers, and you might get one box score, a blip of an article, and maybe two or three line scores. And like I say, you're like a forensics, you know, baseball guy trying to figure out what happened in the games by looking at all this stuff, but it's interesting, you know? I like doing it Well, I w- I mean, I was wondering, you know, s- Baseball Reference now has Negro league stats in there, but you know that- We're getting more all the time But that said, I, I- But we're not enough I mean, you gotta do the forensics that you're talking about. T- There's still a lot there that probably that has not yet been recorded and pulled in. So it's, it's exciting and- But anytime somebody does it, it goes on the file. I mean, I was part of a, a book here that came out a couple years ago called The Pride of Smoketown. It was one of the, uh, Saber books that came out, and a number of us took one Negro League player, and I did Moochie Harris, uh, Curtis "Moochie" Harris, and we, you know, did, like, a chapter on him. And I got so excited. I turned in a chapter that was probably, like, 25 pages. And the guy wrote back, the man West, he goes, "You know, the, the, the players in the book that people know are only getting six or seven pages." "I don't know where you came up with all this research." I was like, "Oh man, I'm a newspaper dog. I, I don't let it go." And he said, "Well, hold onto that stuff, or better yet, turn that research over to us and we'll kick it here, but we need you to cut that back some." And I was like, "Okay, no problem." But, uh, I was... I just... I'm that guy, man. I got every newspaper archive that I can have on my computer, and I'm, I'm proud of it. But I, I kinda miss the old days on the microfilm- Oh, yeah ... back when I was doing, when I was doing Al. It... Really, when I did the Papa Lloyd book, I was doing a lot of microfilm, you know, in the newspapers. But now, you know, you get the newspaper, uh, online websites, and you can look at a lot of different newspapers, but there's still gaps. A lot of those newspapers aren't on those websites, so you still have to go try to find the microfilm, and I do it through the state library up here, and they, they're usually pretty good about getting me stuff I've said this before, I mean, it's amazing resources out there where you can find them. A w- while back, I was looking for something on Ethel Manly, and I found an audio, uh, interview with her, but it was at the University of Kentucky Happy Chandler part of the museum, 'cause you know he's from Kentucky. It's like- Yeah ... you just, you know, you never know where you're gonna find some things. No, you're right. Exactly right. You stumble over half of it. You know, you, you... I'm always surprised at what I find when I'm looking for one thing and I find something else. That's all the time. Yeah. You know? And I, I mean, every project I've ever written, I found some really good stuff by l- just stumbling over it. And, uh, you know, you go up there looking, like I... When I was working on the Pop Lloyd book, I was in Cooperstown, and I went up there to listen to some tape recordings of, uh, that Bill Peterson, no Bob Peterson, Robert Peterson did of, uh, one of Pop Lloyd's wives, Nan. And, uh, she said some stuff that wasn't in his book that led me to think, oh, and got me looking in a different direction. Uh, 'cause I knew he was married twice. I didn't know he was married three times. Oh. And it got me going on... Well, his first wife died, and he was really in love with, with his first wife. She's like his childhood sweetheart and the whole bit. Oh, man. And, and, and she was the one, I was thinking Nan was his first wife, and she was the one that mentioned that, and that got me going farther back, uh, into the newspapers and such, and I f- I found more because, you know, he, they didn't have children, and he didn't really have any relatives so to speak. And it was just kinda, you know, scratching that to get the I wanna take you in a whole other different direction because when I was looking at the Florida baseball players, one of them that I just, I found interesting 'cause all the history sur- surrounding him, and that's Bitsy Mott. Mm-hmm. Dude was funny. He was such a funny guy. I, I loved him. I, he, you know, I met him up in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and he was retired and, uh, on the weekends he would go out and dress up like a clown and, uh, do birthday parties. This guy was a shortstop for the P- Phillies in 1945. And, uh, but he was a pistol. Oh, I loved the guy. Elvis Presley's bodyguard. Yeah. You talk about a varied life, dude. Yeah. Well, Tom Parker, the Colonel Tom Parker, was his brother-in-law. You know? Mm-hmm. His older sister was married to Tom Parker, and Bitsy was like, you know, his career was wrapping up. I think Bitsy's last gig was he'd sold... You know, he spent most of the money he had on, uh, buying into a minority team in, uh, Palatka, the Palatka Azaleas. And the team went broke, and Bitsy didn't have much. And, uh, Tom Parker brought him in and said, "Well look, man, I got this young singer and, you know, you could sell programs and things at his conce- his concerts and make pretty good dough." So Bitsy was doing that, but they're out in I think he said Omaha, Nebraska, and you know, this, he, so we got this Irish tenor going on for his third encore and we can't find Elvis. And, uh, so Tom sent me into the streets, and I knew that he liked Westerns, so I got downtown and sure enough there he was sitting there with his cousin down first row watching this cowboy movie, and I had to get him out of there and get him back. And after that, he goes, "I was his, one of his bodyguards for 20 years after that." Wow. Yeah. Bitsy was a pistol. A sh- short little dude. I really liked him. He, um... Well, I tell you what, he didn't have much use for a lot of these ball players today. And, and when I say today, I mean, when was I talking to him? It was in the late '90s when I was talking to him. But these guys would come in and just specialty roles and things like that. Now, he felt like you need to be in there playing. And these pitchers coming out of the game in the fifth and sixth inning, that kind of stuff drove him crazy, and pinch hitting for guys. You know, he just, "You need to get in there," and he, uh, he had a whole opinion about it. So, uh, today's modern ball, with all the statistics and the way they're switching pitchers in and out- Oh, yeah he'd a, he'd a had a heart attack the day they, they pulled, uh, Blake Snell out of the World Series. Yeah. Fitz readership fell out of his chair. Wow. As I'm sure a lot of older ball players did. Yeah, I know I did. Watch this, watching this. Yeah, you as well. Gosh. And I thought, poor Kevin, that, from that decision. And to this day- He didn't make the decision ... I wonder how much- I didn't think. I don't- ... that was him. Now, how much was the front office? So- I don't think he made that decision. Yeah. I think he, somebody was... He was, he hadn't been there that long. I don't know. I have a hard time believing he made that call. Yeah. I kind of felt like front office may have been a big part of that. So, uh. But you never know. I hate to think that somebody's telling him how to do his job that closely. But on the other hand, if he did pull him out there's no, I don't know how you defend it, so whatever. I'm not a big league manager. No. No. Well, yeah. I just write about them. Well, that's where all the fun is, my friend. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Exactly. But I've been around the game a long time, so I, I, I know a lot of really great ball players over the years, and I've met a lot of really great ball players over the years. And a lot of them come out of Tampa. You know, I was in second grade with Lenny Dykstra, you know? I mean, Lenny's the best ball player I ever saw growing up. Wow. This guy was first round draft pick out of Jefferson, you know? Was in the big leagues by the time he was like 19. You know? I saw, uh, I was in 10th grade, Wade Boggs was at Plant. He was a senior. You know? I mean, the guy could just rake, and he wasn't, he didn't even win the Soladino Award that year. You know? Tony would tell me Boggs was mad at him forever over that. To Boggs, uh, Tony gave it to a guy named, uh, Sammy Spence, who was a pitcher from Brandon. Uh, you look at that all, that all-county team that year, there were some players. I, I was looking at it the other day, and Chris Espinosa was my guy out of Wellswood. Uh, Chris was playing first base for Hillsboro that year, and Chris was on that team. And Bralio Pardo, one of the, one of the really good catchers to come out of Tampa. His younger brother Al made it to the big leagues, but Bralio could catch. God, he was a good catcher. Uh, they just, there were some good ball players in Tampa. Uh, that's for sure. Yeah. But I saw a lot of them. And then the b- then even greater ones came after our generation, you know? I mean, I was in the Air Force, like 19 here. Had Dwight Gooden back at Hillsboro, and Vance Lovelace. And then after them, here comes Sheffield and all those dudes, and God, it just kept rolling. You know? I, I saw an interview with Tino. They were asking Tino about, uh, being at Jefferson. You know, him and Luis following Fred McGriff. And they're like, "Man, how many state championships did you win?" And Tino's like, "Did you see who was playing at Hillsboro while we were there? We couldn't hardly get out of town." Yeah, such legends at that time. And I tell folks today, I said, "If you can't afford or you don't want to go to a Major League game, go to a high school game. Track who's doing well. You're gonna find some great players out there." Uh, s- couple years ago you could've gone to Jesuit and you would've seen Doug Waechter and, uh, Gary Sheffield in the stands watching their sons out there on the field. Now they're, now watching them at Florida State. Yeah. Sheffield, I saw him up here last year 'cause his son's up here. The whole starting pitching staff at Florida State's from Jesuit. I mean, Miguel. What a frigging team. Miguel was incredible coach. Oh, yeah. You know, I met him. We were down there, I think I was, like, 19. I had my Legion team down there playing for the state championship. We played at Jesuit, and Miguel was out there. He had one of his, I think, a younger team in the tournament, but he was out there cleaning the field, you know, working on the field, doing everything 'cause he wouldn't pay an lawn crew. He wouldn't have made any money. And he busted his hump keeping that field good for us. I appreciated him. But we ended up, we played JJ Piez's team down there, and we played the Winter Haven team. What's the name? Schaefer. The head coach at Winter Haven had a team, and we ended up winning it. I think that was our fourth, fourth straight. So we won six straight state championships, and the record before we did that, uh, Tallahassee Post 13, was four. Nobody in the 100 years they've been doing it in Florida had ever won more than four straight state championships, and that was, we won our fourth right there in, at Jesuit. And here I am, I'm, I'm on the field and I'm looking out there, in right center is the Henry Valenzuela family, and I played Little League with Henry, you know? And it was just special. A bunch of my guys, Nelson Valdez, one of the great lefties around when I was a kid. Guy, he was so good. Pitched at West Tampa and went on to pitch for University of South Florida, Miami, and played in the, uh, Minor League Baseball. He was incredible left-handed pitcher. He was at the game. And Ronnie Rodriguez, uh, one of the local coaches around there. Ronnie's ... They're naming a field after Ronnie down at East Bay Little League here, I think, coming up, uh, in Dec- December, uh, 13th I think he told me. Ronnie, Ronnie coached my team when we were at Mustang, a Pony League team. I was 14. Talk about an average group of guys. We had a star on that team, but we beat Chuck Hernandez's team for the championship, and it was such a big deal. Ronnie was the coach. He was 17, and all his boys were 14. And, uh, I'll tell you what, I never had more fun in my life playing for a baseball team. But Ronnie was here that day at Jesuit, and it was just great. My brother, my cousins all came out. And so here I am from Tallahassee with all these Tallahassee boys winning the state championship in front of all my Tampa friends. I- That was a special day Oh man. I've had a lot of fun with baseball. If I'm not writing about it, I've, you know, played it a long time. I wasn't playing, I was writing about it. I was coaching it. You know, it's, it's been my game. As a coach for the American Legion team, I mean, you've had, uh, quite extensive time with them, what, since about 2012? Six straight state championships. We can never get to that World Series. I, I can't figure it. I watch the World Series every year, and I see teams like, "Man, we'd beat them." But getting through that Southeast region was always tough. But like you said, man, it's always something. Yeah. You get up there. The first year we ever went up there, we finished in the Final Four. But we got there, and they wouldn't let our best pitcher pitch. They said the year before, his senior year in high school, he, uh, he couldn't finish his season with us 'cause he was sick, so he came off the roster. "Oh, well, he went on the roster, so he can't play here." Well, he was okay in Florida all year. "Well, we're not gonna do that 'cause the Carolinas are all about the Carolinas." So they didn't let him play. My best slugger didn't show up till game three. We still finished in the Final Four. Uh, another year, 2017, we finished runner-up. Um- We just ran out of pitching. One of the, the guy that would've pitched the championship game was an incredible athlete, a Tampa kid who moved to Tallahassee. Ferrante Cowart, and that kid was legit. Pete, I saw him hit a ground ball between the pitcher and first base and beat it out. I mean, just, just ground ball, just beat it out. Next at bat, hits one over the scoreboard. Little skinny brother from over there in the Ponce de Leon projects, and he moves up here. His dad moved him up here to get him out of, get him out of the heat, and boy, I tell you what, I loved having him because he could play. Ended up playing football at Florida A&M. Wow. Um, but he pulled his hamstring, and so he couldn't pitch. And it, it's al- just always something like that. Yeah. You look right now, I've got, I'm thinking six players playing for Florida A&M right now. I've got like five at Tallahassee State College now. Got one of them down there at Hillsborough Community College. They're just kind of scattered all over, and got one, Brad Lords, pitching for the Washington Nationals. He had a- Geez ... had a g- solid year this year pitching for, for the Nats. And just my kid, Joe Ruth, he's one. I love talking about Joe. Joe's a little kid. His older brother Richard played for us. Uh, and they were from Chiefland, and Chiefland's two hours from Tallahassee, and them boys never missed a practice, much less a game. Wow. Their grandpa was in the Serv- had been in the Service. Drive them up here. Never missed a game. I couldn't get anybody to look at Joe. He was just always too little. He can't do this, can't do that. So I get him to LaGrange, Division III up there in north Georgia. All he does is go on and become the all-time D-III hits leader in the United States. Damn. Caree- he's the all-time career D- Division III hits leader. Just a ballplayer, you know? Wow. I lo- and the kid's stone deaf in one ear. All he does is hear baseball. He hears that ball coming and smacks it. That kid can swing the ball, man. Jeez. I just love them kids. That's, that's what I missed this last year, being around them boys all year. Yeah. Because, um, you know, so it's really fun. Well, I'm glad you had the opportunity to nurture a team like that for so long a- and see, you know, the fruit of some of that, too. And obviously they must be enjoying it or they wouldn't have continued on with it either, so that's, that's good. No, we had a lot of fun. Everybody thought we were from Tampa- ... because we're Tallahassee Post 13. So I took the T and I, and I took the Tampa Bay, the Bay, and I broke it into a 13. So it was the exact same Rays logo, T 13, only instead of a TB, it was a T 13. Everybody thought we were the Rays. The first couple years I'd wear them dark-framed glasses like Joe Maddon. That was pretty- It was pretty stylish. Yeah, I miss Joe Maddon. He was my guy. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Well, I, I hope you, you get down here to Tampa and, and Maddon at the same time maybe during spring training and get a chance to meet up here at the museum or something. But it's, uh- Wow. I, I can't, uh, thank you enough for being on here today. I wanna make sure, is there any- I do wanna remind folks, though, about the books that you've written. Al Lopez: The Life Of Baseball's El Señor, The Right Time: John Henry Lloyd And Black Baseball, Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History, and of course, Doc Charles has written Big Guava. Yeah, that's my, uh, that's my crime n- my attempt at crime, uh, novel. Uh, I'm writing a sequel to that one. I haven't read that one yet. Nick Lago. That's- It'll be titled Lago. It's based on the protagonist, Nick Lago. I love it. And, uh, I'm, I'm getting through there, too. I'm writing that one now. I'm about halfway through it, so. I was laughing today writing a scene. I was like ... I said, "They're making this," that's funny. Yeah. Put my Tampa hat on and start writing. I love it, brother. Oh, Wes, I can't thank you enough, brother, for being on here today. No, I appreciate you, Mark. Thanks for having me. I always like it. All right. All right, well, thank y'all again for joining us here today on Baseball Biz, and we'll be coming back with you again real soon. You've been listening to Baseball Biz On Deck with special guest author and historian Wes Singletary. If you enjoyed this show, go ahead, like and subscribe to Baseball Biz On Deck. You may also find Baseball Biz On Deck on YouTube, iHeart, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and at baseballbizondeck.com. Also, you can find Mark at M-A-R-K-S-C-O-R-B-E-T-T @gmail.com or Mat at M-A-T G-E-R-M-A-I-N.bskysocial or visit us at www.baseballbizondeck.com and on Facebook. Go ahead and leave a like and subscribe to the show. Thanks for listening.