Wes Singletary, The Tampa Roots of a Baseball Historian

Wes Singletary talks about growing up in Tampa, Al Lopez, neighborhood ballfields, American Legion Baseball, The Negro Leagues, Red Barber & 

• Meeting Red Barber
• Wes shares a memorable story of meeting legendary broadcaster Red Barber while at Florida State
• Barber’s weekly Friday show with Bob Edwards  on NPR Morning Edition
• Florida’s First Big League Baseball Players
• Al Lopez sparked Wes’ research into the earliest major leaguers born in Florida
• Tampa Baseball Museum & Wes’ Books
• Mark reflects on discovering Wes’ works at the museum, including:
• Al Lopez: The Life of Baseball's El Senor
• The Right Time: John Henry "Pop" Lloyd and Black Baseball
• Florida’s First Big League Baseball Players
• The Tampa Baseball Museum continues to carry Wes’ books year-round.
  https://www.tampabaseballmuseum.org/ 
• Tampa’s Outsized Baseball Legacy
• West Tampa & Ybor has produced a wealth of legendary players and coaches—from Tony La Russa and Lou Piniella to Tino Martinez and Luis Gonzalez—and why many outsiders still underestimate the city’s baseball history.
• American Legion Baseball Turns 100
  • Centennial of American Legion baseball, 
  • American Legion ball in small towns
  • Legion baseball predates Little League by more than a decade.
• Rays, Yankees, and Local Loyalties
  • Why Yankees spring training in Tampa complicates local loyalties
  • How transplants shape Rays attendance
  • What it might take to shift support toward Tampa’s home team
• Bitsy Mott, Colonel Parker and Elvis
• Al Lopez vs. Casey Stengel - great stories from the 1954 and 1959 pennant races—including Stengel’s legendary quips 
• Show Stopper – Al Lopez was the only manager to interrupt the Yankees’ dominance.
• Hall of Fame a Swing & a Miss - Wes & Mark Question the Veterans/Eras Committee on omitting Lou Piniella by 1 vote from the Hall of Fame
• A visit to Lou Piniella’s house & a lifetime memory – Young Wes receives a baseball signed by Munson, Hunter, and more

Discover more about Wes and his books at :  https://bit.ly/481acjG
Mark at  baseballbizondeck@gmail.com, at iHeart Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and at www.baseballbizOnDeck.com 

 Special Thanks to Williams Ross Chernoff's Nomads for the music Makie Elkino

Transcript

Wes Singletary, Baseball Historian on BaseballBiz

[00:00:00] Mark Corbett: Welcome to Florida BaseballBiz. I'm Mark Corbett, your host, and with me, of course, is somebody always gonna have a great guest. This is Mr. Wes Singletary. Wes, how you doing buddy? We're doing 

[00:00:12] Wes Singletary: good. Up here in Tallahassee's. A little cooler up here. Oh man, 

[00:00:15] Mark Corbett: I tell you what, you know, I've got, before we get into all this, I gotta, when I thought of Tallahassee, when I was a younger man, I would always think of these Friday mornings listening to NPR and the Ol' Redhead was on there and he was talking with, uh.

[00:00:31] Bob Edwards. Bob Edwards. Yeah. Colonels. Yeah. 

[00:00:34] Wes Singletary: Yeah, the Magnolias. The Magnolias. The what? He'd say the uh, you know the Camelias is a bloomin' Colonel. 

[00:00:42] Mark Corbett: That's lovely. Yeah. We're talking about Red Barber, Bob Edwards there long ago. But man, I love you. I had a chance to 

[00:00:48] Wes Singletary: meet him once. I had a professor at Florida State named Bill Rogers incredible professor, and he would have.

[00:00:54] His 1920s class, he would have Red Barber come out. It was actually 1920 to 1945, they called his [00:01:00] jazz age class and Red Barber would come out every year and he'd talk about working with the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson and all that. And uh, it was just incredible to meet him. 

[00:01:08] Mark Corbett: Wes, I'm so glad to have you on here.

[00:01:10] I, I gotta tell you, I, I met you when I 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.

[00:01:27] Florida, those are the ones I remember and I was enthralled with them. So I immediately had to go and put 'em on, put 'em 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.

[00:01:45] Wes Singletary: Arcadia 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 [00:02:00] he thought he was the first guy from Florida to make it to the big leagues.

[00:02:03] 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 1950s, 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.

[00:02:26] Uh, so I started looking, thinking how many guys from Florida. Before 1950 and there were 20, uh, six and only eight of 'em were still alive. So I just tracked 'em all down and I'd already talked to Al plenty and I tracked all the others down, including c Charlie Cuellar from Tampa and, uh, Emmanuel Monise from Tampa.

[00:02:43] And, uh, Bitsy Mott, uh, was from Sarasota, but he was around, uh, Tampa a lot. And, um, got to know all of 'em and I interviewed 'em all. And gr ult, you know, I would publish their interviews in different journals and so forth., And then, , when [00:03:00] Al passed away, he was the oldest of those eight survivors, but he outlived them all.

[00:03:04] And when he passed away, uh, had some publishers talk to me. If I had all the, uh. Interview, 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. A 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.

[00:03:24] I put it together and it's, it really meant a lot to me to do that for those guys. And, , it's still out there and people enjoy reading it and I'm happy to, I'm happy for the, for the guys that told their story in that book, for sure. 

[00:03:36] Mark Corbett: It's still on Amazon. I know that. And I found it here in, here in the Hillsborough Library in, uh, Tampa.

[00:03:42] Well, we sell it as well at the 

[00:03:43] Wes Singletary: museum. The museum sells it. 

[00:03:44] Mark Corbett: Yeah, we sell it there. The museum 

[00:03:45] Wes Singletary: is so nice to me. I mean, they sell all my books in there, especially around Christmas time. 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.

[00:03:56] Uh, other than me, you, I'm a [00:04:00] big Tampa guy, born and raised down there, so, you know. 

[00:04:03] Mark Corbett: 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?

[00:04:13] Wes Singletary: 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 , I knew a bunch of guys at Wellswood where I played baseball.

[00:04:28] Well, I played. Wellswood. It is just funny. We'd have guys from West Tampa playing at Wellswood, and I knew guys from Wellswood that were playing in West Tampa, but we were the two big rivals. And then who ever would went out of these two leagues would go play Belmont Heights. I mean, it was some good baseball for little kids.

[00:04:45] And then we'd all go to school together, you know, and they would break into Hillsborough, Jefferson, and you know, then during the All-Star tournament as we 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 in, I think fifth grade, they decided everybody [00:05:00] north of, uh, Buffalo, which is MLK now, would, uh, end up going to Menden Hall is over in Wellswood instead of Tampa Bay Boulevard.

[00:05:06] And then desegregation came so that they took all of us and sent us to Bryan over like on 28th Street. 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 eighth and ninth grade school.

[00:05:24] 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. I think I changed schools six, seven times.

[00:05:40] Geez, man. Because of all that, the longest was Tampa Bay Boulevard. I, I was there, uh, four years. So. 

[00:05:47] Mark Corbett: You know, and it is interesting 'cause you brought up, Blake and I, before we started recording, was mentioning, Hipolito Arenas, no, I'm not saying his name properly, ato. And he was, you know, an African American player, uh, [00:06:00] in the Negro Leagues.

[00:06:01] And he also did a lot with youth baseball around here with, uh, the Hornets. 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 it.

[00:06:33] And 

[00:06:33] Wes Singletary: that's when Tampa was small. 

[00:06:33] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:06:34] Wes Singletary: 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 close to 23 million. Now that's a thousand people a day moving here.

[00:06:49] Geez. They wanna build a border, put one up here along between Thomasville and Tallahassee, you know, do a wall up to keep the Canadians out. At least the Latins work, you know? No offense, but [00:07:00] God. Wow, it's craziness. 

[00:07:02] Mark Corbett: Well, I, I wanted talk to you a bit about something you'd been involved with for many years.

[00:07:06] 'cause 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 expand. I gotta tell you though, Wes, I mean your a historian and you know all of this, but I, at, I would've presumed before I did any homework that Little League had been around before American Legion, but.

[00:07:27] Actually, American Legion was probably about at least 15 years ahead of where the Little League Association came around. So 

[00:07:36] Wes Singletary: yeah, American Legion of all us up on a hundred years now. Yeah. And again, little, little League Incorporated, you know, that's, they first started kind of official making official what was going on in the Sandlots and so forth, you know, prior to that.

[00:07:48] 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, [00:08:00] um. Ballpark is built for the American Legion team that if they wanted to put a minor league team in Cheyenne, they could play there.

[00:08:06] 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. 

[00:08:22] Mark Corbett: Well, I'm really glad to see it.

[00:08:24] I know as I was a 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 city I grew up with or over there.

[00:08:41] Wes Singletary: Where'd you grow, Mark?

[00:08:42] Uh, Louisville, Kentucky. And specifically Shively. Small little city. That's right. 

[00:08:46] You, you've told me that could, we talked about Ludlow coaching up there. That's right. 

[00:08:49] Mark Corbett: Yep. Yeah. But it, it was a, it's a lot of fun. And what, uh, looking back though, with the American Legion, see, I was even surprised to see names like.

[00:08:58] La Russa and Pinella. [00:09:00] I think they both were in there. I mean, as far as long as we're talking about Tampa and I guess I, well, they grew up 

[00:09:05] Wes Singletary: playing together and, you know, except for high school. 

[00:09:08] Mark Corbett: Well, yeah, and they, what? They just celebrate the 35th anniversary of their World series, facing off one another as managers.

[00:09:15] Wes Singletary: Al Lopez thought that was the most in incredible thing he'd ever seen. I, I can still remember Al talking about it. He was beaming with pride, just busting, you know, he says, you got two good kids. They grew up together. You know, one from Ybor City, one from West Tampa. They played together Legion Ball and then managing against each other in the World Series.

[00:09:31] My God, you'll never see that again. And I mean, I can't talk about Al without almost trying to imitate him. I can hear him in my head still, ? And , he was just amazed. And then, wasn't that long after that you had Tino and Luis Gonzalez playing against each other and in the 2001 World Series and it's, Tampa, I, you know, for ye, I can't say it enough how many arguments I've had with people over the years.

[00:09:53] Telling 'em you don't, you, you think you know Tampa baseball and you don't have a clue. 

[00:09:57] Mark Corbett: Yeah. You 

[00:09:58] Wes Singletary: know, I can take you right down the [00:10:00] list of ball players and of any game, any World series, any Allstar game, and just start pointing at kids from Tampa and, and you'd be shocked. You just don't realize it. Oh, you guys don't support the Rays.

[00:10:11] No, we don't tell, we don't get on bridges. That's what it is. We don't get on bridges during rush hour. You know, that's, and then plus you add to that, the provincialism has 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.

[00:10:29] I'm sorry, you talked to Mario Nunez and he'll get into that with you in a minute. You know, we're Tampeños , you know, we support Tampa, 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. 

[00:10:45] Mark Corbett: I will be curious to see if there's a realignment with the folks who've just seen the St.

[00:10:50] Pete Rays, if you will, compared to once they bring that, those, that team over here on this side of the water and 

[00:10:57] Wes Singletary: they'll stay over there. They won't come to Tampa. 

[00:10:59] Mark Corbett: Oh [00:11:00] geez. 

[00:11:01] Wes Singletary: I'm telling you. It's always been this way and, and they'll, you know, even though so many people have moved from the outside, you know, what I'd like to see is just.

[00:11:12] People start rooting for Tampa instead of all the Red Sox fans and the Yankees fans. Oh, are, 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. You know that's gonna be the deal. You gotta get the Yankees outta there.

[00:11:27] I'm sorry. They gotta go. You need to build a team for the, for the Rays in Tampa. Tell the Yankees to hit the skids. Get on down the road somewhere. It is just no other team has a professional team training in their city. That's just how it works. And I understand they've been doing it a long time, but it's time for them to move on.

[00:11:46] Mark Corbett: I agree. Uh, it's been, has been a hard row with that. I know when I went to any Ray's Yankees game there at the Trop, it was almost obscene, the number of Yankees fans that were there in the stands compared to Ray's fans [00:12:00] 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.

[00:12:09] And like you said, they maintain a loyalty to their original team. And I was a 

[00:12:13] Wes Singletary: Yankee. Hey, I was a Yankees fan my whole life. I mean, the first little league team I ever played on, it was with Little League was the Yankees. Mm-hmm. 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.

[00:12:29] 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.

[00:12:45] And I said, well, actually, they're from St. Petersburg, but you got a point. And I, I started following 'em pretty closely. But, uh, you know, writing the book about Al Lopez too kind of made it hard to root for the Yankees. 'cause you know. He was the, he [00:13:00] was the threadbare sombrero Senor, you know, I mean, s and the Senor thread, bear sombrero chasing the Yankees all those years.

[00:13:05] And so, um, you know, there was a lot of things that went into it. 

[00:13:09] Mark Corbett: Well, I remember reading your book and 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 kind of put it to him too, that he was gonna show him both, I guess when he was managing the White Sox and then also the Indians that uh, he kind of put the push down on the Yankees there, didn't he?

[00:13:31] Wes Singletary: He's the only guy in 16 years who beat him for the pennant. The only guy, I mean 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 the Casey Stengel and said, uh, told him when Al was saying Stengel.

[00:13:50] So did that, did the Mexican say that? And you know, the Stengel and Al Opens were great friends. They were business partners. Al had played for Stengel. They loved each other. [00:14:00] But did the Mexican say that? Well, you tell the Senor, unless my brain rots or my team gets hit by a truck, they're not gonna win. The Yankees are, and , so the Indians rip off 111 games and the Yankees win 103 games and finish eight games back, you know, and they asked Stengel about it and he says, well, you know, the Senor beat me and you could look it up.

[00:14:26] I love it. It was another time the way they talked about each other. That's for sure. 

[00:14:29] 

[00:14:29] Wes Singletary: And then at 59 Al got him again, but neither time, , Al won the World Series and I asked Al what happened, you know, 111 games, he 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.

[00:14:43] We get to the World Series, we couldn't do anything right. And you know, Mays makes that catch off Vic Wertz. Willy Mays and Dusty Rhodes hits our little nothing fly, you know, home run down to the rights. Field corner there, just, it didn't work out for us. You know, that happens in baseball. Yeah, it does. 

[00:14:59] Mark Corbett: Yeah, [00:15:00] that's, yeah, that's baseball.

[00:15:01] 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.

[00:15:27] And I had, I had some fans in the White Sox. They said, we're still mad at al. I said, what? And we're still mad at Al. We, he didn't. I know 

[00:15:36] Wes Singletary: why. I can tell you why. Right now, 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.

[00:15:47] 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 thought, Nellie, great player, great player, wouldn't SPO wouldn't [00:16:00] support him, just didn't think it was the Hall of Famer. 

[00:16:03] Mark Corbett: , I keep wondering about the Veterans Committee.

[00:16:05] I'm, I'm one Why? 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 and not, because I see, I keep looking at Lou Piniella and I'm saying, Lou 

[00:16:17] Wes Singletary: missed it by one vote. Yeah. I mean, he should have been in the next year.

[00:16:20] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:16:20] Wes Singletary: You know, it's, doesn't get me started. I Lou's one of my favorite guys I met. 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, you know, I didn't have much use for my stepfather at the time.

[00:16:39] 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 are you, wait, want my autograph for. 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, please call me Junior.

[00:16:55] Come on Junior, let's go somewhere. And we got in the car and we took a ride over to Temple Terrace and [00:17:00] Lou come out. He had like this little Lhasa Apso dog come out on the porch. And I couldn't believe that I was slack jaw, 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.

[00:17:12] Ed Figueroa and Mickey Rivers and you know, I didn't know it, but the Yankees we're headed to the First World Series in years, that next season, you know, and Al Lou gave me an autograph ball, had all had my hero, Thurman Munsons had signed it, and Catfish Hunter. And I mean, that was a big thing. So I've, I've just been in love with Lou Pinella for years.

[00:17:29] You talk about managing American Legion teams, I was like, Lou Pinella, American Legion, an umpire baitin', son of a gun.

[00:17:37] Mark Corbett: 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 Eras committee's has 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.

[00:17:53] It's just, eh, well. I don't wanna go down that road 'cause I'll be angry for another 10 minutes. 

[00:17:59] Wes Singletary: Have you watched any, have you [00:18:00] watched any of that? Uh, Alex Rodriguez documentary? 

[00:18:02] Mark Corbett: No, 

[00:18:03] Wes Singletary: 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, Arod first came up and he does a really good job talking about Alex Rodriguez and his, his career and his merits as a hall of famer.

[00:18:17] Um, regardless of the issues and so forth. And yeah, I was real proud of Lou. He came across real well. 

[00:18:23] Mark Corbett: Well, I'm glad to hear, I'm not surprised I hadn't seen this, but I did get a, uh, obscure text from a friend I hadn't talked to in a while. He says, wow, Lou Pinella. I thought, okay, what's your reference?

[00:18:33] '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 arod, , thing came out. So that's something. Yeah. So right now. We talked about the books you've written as far as like the Al Lopez, uh, on the Florida Baseball Players, the history of those coming up, which John Henry Lloyd, and what are you, what else are you working on right now?

[00:18:54] I'm 

[00:18:54] Wes Singletary: researching the one on, uh, Dick Lundy, Richard Lundy outta Jacksonville, on anyone's [00:19:00] 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.

[00:19:19] , He was also a great baseball man. He was the 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 Marcelle at third base. They had Bingo DeMoss as second base, and Bogen Wilson at first, I mean, it was one of the great Negro League teams.

[00:19:38] 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 is living in a. Little city buried in a little cemetery over there and not far from re Bolt and Rains High school over there.

[00:19:52] 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 of the Tony Award winner, uh, [00:20:00] tap Dancer on Broadway, Savion Glover. Uh, and it, I think it's just perfect because, uh, rich Dick Lundy was like a ballerina almost. He's shortstop, you know, I think a modern comparison would be somebody like Ozzy Smith, although Dick Lundy was a little bigger, probably hit the ball a little harder.

[00:20:16] 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 Jai-Alai. It was just effortless. You know, I think, I think I'm, I'm looking forward to being able to finish up this stuff and, and do him some justice when I can actually start writing about him.

[00:20:35] Mark Corbett: 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 what he did with, and he also at the times, and not surprisingly because. Just racism overall. But didn't they usually have, was he a waiter, like at a, a [00:21:00] country club or somewhere?

[00:21:01] I, down 

[00:21:01] Wes Singletary: the Royal, The Royal Poinciana Ciana, 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 busboy and, and cabbies. You know, they'd literally pull like what you would call a rickshaw almost.

[00:21:19] And uh, and work as busboy and waiters and so forth, work in the kitchen. And then they would play for the hotel teams. And 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, they worked a hotel league in Palm Beach, and then they'd work back barnstorm their way back north.

[00:21:37] And that's how Pop Lloyd got discovered. Saul 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 him up to, uh, Philadelphia, where he played his first year, I guess, was like around 1906.

[00:21:56] Mark Corbett: Sense had great 

[00:21:57] Wes Singletary: players out there, you know. Oh wow. You just, [00:22:00] you what? Great baseball, huh? Living in one of the hotels. Get to go out and watch those guys, some of the best players on the planet. Yeah. That guy carried my suitcases in there, 

[00:22:07] Mark Corbett: you know? Oh, I know ca I know. Can you imagine that today that Oh yeah.

[00:22:11] Well that was, uh, whoever, who, whoever's, uh, Bryce Harper's carrying my know. We 

[00:22:15] Wes Singletary: don't have to, you know. 

[00:22:16] Mark Corbett: No, no, that's insanity. 

[00:22:18] Wes Singletary: But I mean, I'm just fascinated with the Negro Leagues. 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 were the first contract of the first Negro League was signed.

[00:22:36] Uh, you know, Buck O'Neill was one of the founders, uh, 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 had to make him the, get rid of Manfred and make. Make Bob Kendrick, the commissioner of Major League Baseball because he's incredible.

[00:22:53] I go to that museum and the first time I was ever there, I didn't tell him who I was. I, you know, not that he even know me, but he is familiar with my book. I [00:23:00] just had met him and I slipped in there and I was just watching him and he's leading tours around the museum and, but dressed. It's like he tells me when he met Buck O'Neal, Buck said, you got up your game and he starts dressing with these suits like.

[00:23:13] It's just the dude is just on fire and he knows his baseball and you know, I just, I just was so impressed with him 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, a great podcast too. Black Diamonds is, I'm sure you're familiar with it. And I, I had the, uh, chance to go on his show with him about.

[00:23:33] I dunno, maybe a year ago now I talk about pop and I had a lot of, a lot of fun doing that. But, uh, that the Negro Leagues is just something special with me. I really enjoy research and digging 'cause boy, talk about being a, um. A forensic baseball, you know, researcher when you're trying to put together from like line scores.

[00:23:53] '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 [00:24:00] an article and maybe two or three line scores. And like I say, you're like a forensics, get a baseball guy trying to figure out what happened in the games if I look at all this stuff.

[00:24:09] But it's interesting, you know, 

[00:24:11] Mark Corbett: I like doing it. I mean, I was wondering, you know, baseball reference now has Negro League stats in there, but you know that we get more 

[00:24:20] Wes Singletary: all the time. Well, that's it. Well, not enough. 

[00:24:23] Mark Corbett: I mean, kinda do the forensics that you're talking about, it is still a lot there that probably that has not yet been recorded and pulled in.

[00:24:31] So it's, it's exciting. Every time 

[00:24:33] Wes Singletary: somebody does it, it goes on the pile. 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, SABR books that came out and a number of us took one Negro League player and I did Moochie Harris, uh, Curtis Moochie Harris.

[00:24:48] And we, you know, did like a chapter on him and I got so excited. I turned in a chapter, it was probably like 25 page. And the guy wrote back in Man Wes, he goes, you know, the, the, the players in the book [00:25:00] that people know are only getting six or seven pages. I know where you came up. All this research. I, oh man, I'm a newspaper dog.

[00:25:07] I, I don't let it go. And he said, well, hold onto that stuff. We better get turned that research over to us and we'll kick it here, but we need you to cut that back some. And I was Okay, no problem. But, uh, I was, I just. I'm the 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 kind of miss the old days on the microphone.

[00:25:27] Mark Corbett: Oh yeah. Back 

[00:25:27] Wes Singletary: when I was doing, when I was doing Al it really, when I did the Pop Lloyd book, I was doing a lot of microfilm, you know, on the newspapers, but now 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.

[00:25:46] And I do it through the state library up here. And they, they're usually pretty good about getting me stuff. 

[00:25:52] Mark Corbett: I've said this before, I mean, it's amazing resources out there where you can find them. Uh, while back I was looking for something on [00:26:00] Effa Manley and I found an audio, uh, interview with her, but it was at the University of Kentucky.

[00:26:06] Happy Chandler part of the museum because he is from Kentucky. And it's like you just, you know, you never know where you're gonna find some things. 

[00:26:15] Wes Singletary: 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.

[00:26:23] That's all the time. Yeah. You know, and I mean, every project I've ever written, I found some really good stuff. I 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, but no, Bob Peterson, Robert Peterson did of, uh, one of Pop Lloyd's wives, Nan.

[00:26:47] 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, because I knew he was married twice. I didn't know he was married three times. Oh. And it got me going on. Well, his [00:27:00] first of all died and he was really in love with. With his first wife.

[00:27:02] She's like his childhood sweetheart in the whole bed. Oh man. And, and, and she was the one, I almost think Can and 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, I found more because, you know, he, they didn't have children and he didn't really have any relatives, so to speak.

[00:27:20] And it was just kind of, you know, scratching at to get it. 

[00:27:26] Mark Corbett: I wanna take you in a whole other different direction because when I was looking at the Florida baseball players, one of 'em that just I found interesting 'cause all the history surrounding him, and that's Bitsy Mott. 

[00:27:40] Wes Singletary: Mm-hmm. Dude was funny. He was such a funny guy.

[00:27:44] 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 Phillies in 1945. [00:28:00] And, uh, but he was a pistol. Oh, I loved the guy Elvis Presley's bodyguard.

[00:28:05] Mark Corbett: Yeah. He talked about a varied life. Dude, that's, 

[00:28:08] Wes Singletary: yeah. Well, Tom Parker, the colonel, Tom Parker was his brother-in-law. You know, his older sister was married to Tom Parker, and Bitsy was like you. His career was wrapping up. I think Bitsy, he's, last gig was he'd sold. You know, he spent most of the money he had on a buying into a minor league team in, uh, Palatka, the Palataka Azaleas.

[00:28:26] 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 concert, his concerts, and he makes pretty good dough. So Bitsy was doing that, but they're out in, I think he said Omaha, Nebraska, and you know this.

[00:28:43] So we got this Irish tenor going on for his third encore. 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.

[00:28:59] And after [00:29:00] that he goes, I was his, one of his bodyguards for 20 years after that. Wow. Yeah, bitsy was a pistol. Well, 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 ballplayers today. And, and when I say today, I mean, when I was talking to him, it was in the late nineties when I was talking to him.

[00:29:19] But these guys that, , come in and just. Specialty roles and things like that, you know, he felt like you need to be in there playing. And these pitchers coming outta the game in the fifth and sixth inning, that kind of stuff drove him crazy and pinch hitting for guys, you know, he is just, you need to get in there.

[00:29:36] 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 pictures in and out. Oh 

[00:29:44] Mark Corbett: yeah. 

[00:29:44] Wes Singletary: He, he done had a heart attack the day they, they pulled, uh, Blake Snell outta the world's Series. Bitsy Mott would have up and fell out of his chair. Wow. As I'm sure a lot of older ballplayers did.

[00:29:57] Mark Corbett: Yeah. I know. I did watch, just watching, [00:30:00] gosh, and I poor Kevin that from that decision and to this day, I wonder how much that was him now, how much was the front office? 

[00:30:10] Wes Singletary: 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.

[00:30:17] Mark Corbett: Yeah. I kind of felt like front office may have been a big part of it, so, uh, 

[00:30:20] Wes Singletary: 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. 

[00:30:31] Mark Corbett: No.

[00:30:32] Well, 

[00:30:32] Wes Singletary: I just write 'em. 

[00:30:34] Mark Corbett: Well, that's where all the fun is my friend. 

[00:30:36] Wes Singletary: Yeah. Oh gosh. Exactly. But I've been around the game a long time, so 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 'em come outta Tampa. You know, I was in second grade with Lenny Faedo, you know, I mean, Lenny's best ball player I ever saw growing up.

[00:30:52] Wow. This guy was first round draft pick outta Jefferson, you know, he was in the big leagues by the time he was like 19, you know, I saw, I was in [00:31:00] 10th grade. Wade Boggs was at Plant, he was a senior. And the guy could just rank. And he wasn't, he didn't even win the Saladino award that year. You know, Tony would tell you Boggs was mad at him forever over that to Bos.

[00:31:12] Uh, Tony gave it to a guy named, uh, Sammy Spence, who's a pitcher from Brandon. Uh, you look at that, all that all county team that year there was some players. I, I was looking at it the other day and Chris Espinosa was my guy outta Wellswood. Uh, Chris was playing first base for Hillsborough that year, and Chris was on that team.

[00:31:27] And, , Bradley o Parto, one of the, one of the really good catchers to come outta Tampa. His younger brother Al made it to the big leagues, but Braley could catch God. He was a good catcher. Uh, they just, there's some good ball players in Tampa, uh, that's for sure. I saw a lot of 'em, and then the, then even greater ones came after our generation, you know, I mean, I was in the Air Force, like 19 hearing Dwight Gooden back at Hillsborough and Vance Lovelace, and then after them, here comes Sheffield and all those dudes, and God, it just kept rolling.

[00:31:57] You know, I, I saw an interview with Tino. They were [00:32:00] asking Tino about. Uh, being at Jefferson, you know, him and Louis following Fred McGriff, and they're like, man, how many state championships did you win? And Tino Martinez was like, did you see who was playing in Hillsborough while we were there? We can only get out town, you know?

[00:32:14] Mark Corbett: Yeah, such legends at that time. And I tell folks today, I said, if you can't afford or you don't wanna go to a major league game, go to a high school game. Yeah. Track who's doing well. You're gonna find some great players out there. Uh, a couple years ago you could've gone to Jesuit and you would've seen Doug Waechter and, um, Gary Sheffield on the stands, watching their sons out there on the field.

[00:32:35] Now they're 

[00:32:35] Wes Singletary: now watching with Florida State. 

[00:32:37] Mark Corbett: Yeah, 

[00:32:37] Wes Singletary: Sheffield. I saw him up here last year because his son's up here. The whole starting pitching staff at Florida States from Jesuit. And Miguel, what a freaking team Miguel was. Incredible coach. 

[00:32:47] Mark Corbett: Yeah, 

[00:32:47] Wes Singletary: yeah. You know, I met him, we were down there. I think I was like 19.

[00:32:50] I had my all 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 [00:33:00] there cleaning the field, you know, working on the field, doing everything. 'cause he wasn't paying a lawn crew. He wouldn't have made any money.

[00:33:05] And he busted his hump, keeping that field good for us. I appreciated him. But we ended up, we played JJ Pizzos team, , down there and we played, , the Winter Haven team. , What's the name? Schaeffer, the head coach of Winter Haven had a team and we ended up winning it. I think that was our fourth. Fourth straight, because we won six straight state championships.

[00:33:23] And the record before we did that, uh, Tallahassee poster team was four. Nobody in the a hundred 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 at Jesuit. And here I am, I'm, I'm on the field and I'm looking out there, in right center, there's the Henry Valenzuela family and I play a little league with Henry, you know, and, .

[00:33:44] 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 at University of South Florida, Miami and played, uh, minor league baseball. He was incredible left-handed pitcher. He [00:34:00] was at the game and.

[00:34:01] Ronnie Rodriguez, uh, one of the local coaches around there, Ronnie's their name in a field, , after Ronnie down at East Bay Little League here, I think coming up, uh, in de December, uh, 13th, I think he told me, uh, Ronnie, Ronnie coached my team when we were at Mustang. Uh, pony league team. I was 14 talking about an average group of guys.

[00:34:20] We have a star on that team, but we beat Chuck Hernandez's team for the championship and it was such a big deal. Ronnie was a 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. It was just great.

[00:34:37] 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. That was a special day. 

[00:34:48] Mark Corbett: Oh man. 

[00:34:50] Wes Singletary: I've had a lot of fun with baseball. If I'm not writing about it, I, you know, I was, played it a long time. I went playing, I was writing about it, I was coaching it, you know, it's, it's been my [00:35:00] game.

[00:35:00] Mark Corbett: as a coach for the American Legion team? You mean you've had, uh, quite extensive time with them, what, since about 2012

[00:35:06] Wes Singletary: , six straight state championships. We can never get to that World Series.

[00:35:10] I, I can't figure it. I'll watch the World Series every year and I see teams that, man, we beat them. But getting through that southeast region was always tough. But like you said, man, it's always something. 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.

[00:35:27] They said the year before his senior in high school, he, 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.

[00:35:43] 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, it just ran outta pitching. One of the, the guy that would've pitched a championship game [00:36:00] was an incredible athlete, a Tampa kid who moved to Tallahassee.

[00:36:03] Ferrante Coward. That kid was legit. He, I saw him. And a ground ball between the pitcher and first base and beat it out. I mean, just, just ground ball to beat it out. Next at bat, hits one over to the scoreboard, little skinny brother from over there on the Ponce De Leon Projects. And he moves up here. His dad moved him up here to get him out of, get him outta the heat.

[00:36:23] And boy, I tell you what, I love having him. He could play up playing football at Florida A & M 

[00:36:27] Mark Corbett: Wow. Uh, 

[00:36:28] Wes Singletary: but he pulled his hamstring and so he couldn't pitch. And it, it's just always something like that. 

[00:36:33] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:36:33] Wes Singletary: 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.

[00:36:42] Got one of 'em down there at Hillsborough Community College and just kind of scattered all over and got one Brad Lord's pitching for the Washington Nationals. He had a kind of a solid year this year pitching for, for the Nats and , just my kid, Joe Ruth. He's one I'm talking about Joe Joe's a little kid.

[00:36:59] His only brother [00:37:00] Richard played for us. Uh, and they were from Chiefland. The Chiefland was two hours from Tallahassee and them boys never missed a practice, much less a game. 

[00:37:08] Mark Corbett: Wow. 

[00:37:08] Wes Singletary: Their grandpa was in the service, had been in the service, drive him up here. Never missed a game. I couldn't get anybody to look at Joe.

[00:37:15] He was just always too little. He can't do this, can't do that. So I get him to LaGrange Division three up there in Orange, Georgia. All he does is go on and become the all time deep three hits leader in the United States. Damn career. He's the all time career D division. Three hits leader. Just a ball player, you know?

[00:37:34] Wow. I love, and the kids stone deaf in one ear. All he does is hear baseball. He hears that ball coming to smack him. That kid can play ball, man. I just love him. 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. 

[00:37:51] Mark Corbett: Well, I'm glad you had the opportunity to nurture a team for like that, for so long and, and see, you know, the fruit of some of that too.

[00:37:57] And obviously they must be [00:38:00] enjoying it or they wouldn't have continued on with it either. So that's, that's, no, we had a lot 

[00:38:03] Wes Singletary: 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 B, and I broke it into a 13. So it was the exact same Ray's logo, T 13 only.

[00:38:16] 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 Madden. It was pretty, it was pretty stylish. Yeah, I miss Joe Madden. He was my guy. 

[00:38:28] Mark Corbett: Yeah. Oh goodness. Well, I, I hope you, you get down here to Tampa and, and Madden at the same time.

[00:38:35] Maybe during spring training, 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 is s the Right Time.

[00:38:53] John Henry Lloyd and Black Baseball, Florida's first big league baseball players in narrative history. And of course, [00:39:00] doc Charles has written Big Guava. 

[00:39:03] Wes Singletary: Yeah, that's my, uh, that's my crime. My attempts at crime, uh, novel, uh, I'm writing a sequel to that one. I haven't read that one yet. That's, it'll be titled Longo.

[00:39:12] It's based on the protagonist Nick Longo. 

[00:39:14] Mark Corbett: I love it. 

[00:39:14] Wes Singletary: 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 sit here making this. Ha ha. That's funny. Put my Tampa hat on it. Start writing. 

[00:39:27] Mark Corbett: I love it, brother. Oh, Wes, I can't thank you enough brother for being on here today.

[00:39:31] Oh, I 

[00:39:31] Wes Singletary: appreciate you, mark. Thanks for having me. I always like it. 

[00:39:34] Mark Corbett: All right. All right. Well, thank you all again for joining us here today on Baseball Biz Florida Baseball Biz, and we'll be coming back with you again real soon, man. Thank you so much.