In recent years, Florida's playgrounds have produced an abundance of exceptional professional baseball players: Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Luis Gonzales and Tino Martinez, to name only a few. Before 1950, however, only twenty-six Florida boys made it to the pros got their shot in the big leagues.
Players like Tampa's Al Lopez, a Hall of Fame member and baseball's first Hispanic manager, and Pensacola native Russ Scarritt, who set the Boston Red Sox record for most triples in a season his rookie year, blazed a trail that has opened the door for many of today's baseball superstars. Florida's First Big League Baseball Players, by baseball historian and enthusiast Wes Singletary, is a narrative journey into the early days of baseball in Florida before 1950.
When this project was undertaken only eight of the original twenty-six players were still living. Written from hours of interviews and presented in a narrative form that is engaging and informative, this collection allows the reader to journey back to a time when the game was more innocent and the heart of the men playing, a little bigger.
Tampa native Wes Singletary is currently Executive Director for the Discovery of Florida Quincentennial Commission, Florida Department of State, mapping a statewide celebration of Florida's Quincentennial in 2013. Wes has served as an adjunct history professor at Tallahassee Community College since 1993. He is author of Al Lopez: The Life of Baseball's El Senor and is presently working on a biography of John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, a baseball hall-of-famer from the Negro Leagues; both are Florida natives. He currently resides in Tallahassee Florida.