In the Beginning…
While Spring Training made it to Florida (Jacksonville) in 1888, it did not reach central and west Florida until 1913. The reason? Transportation. The East Coast teams had a choice of taking a steamer or a train to Jacksonville while inland teams could get there via train. Neither way was practical below what today we would call the I-10 corridor. One line did reach from Fernandina into Cedar Key mainly to haul lumber (cedar mostly, I believe).
After the Civil War small railroads developed and laid track all through the central part of Florida. When Henry Flagler began laying track down the Eastern Seaboard all the way to Key West, he did so with standard gauge track (from at least Roman Times, the width of two draught horses) which would keep him consistent with tracks coming into Florida from the north. The Cedar Key to Fernandina run was on narrow gauge tracks as were most of the small railroads through the rest of Florida.
A Philadelphia industrialist named Hamilton Disston bailed Florida’s Civil War debt out by purchasing 4 million acres of land for 25 cents an acre. The purchase was intended to be primarily swamp and scrub land meant for agricultural development. Instead Disston sent out scouts and selected the land that existed primarily above the water line. His lands were primary to developing the railroads to the south and west.
Once such line, the Orange Belt Railroad made it to St. Petersburg and nearly one-half mile into Tampa Bay. Another Henry, H.B. Plant took over the railway, converted it to Standard gauge, and built magnificent hotels in Tampa and Belleair plus a steamship line connecting Tampa to Havana.
While travel was still rugged, regular coaches could now deliver the teams. The first such instance came in 1908. While not spring training it brought the major leagues to the Florida west Coast. At the end of the ’08 season the Reds signed up to play in the Cuban-American Series. The Reds would play about a dozen games against two Cuban clubs plus a single game against an American negro team. But first they had to get to Cuba.
So, in late October they came to Tampa to catch the steamer to Havana. They played a couple of exhibitions versus amateur teams in Tampa and one in St. Pate against the Saints semi-pro club. The trip would be more fortuitous to St. Pete’s future than Tampa’s. The Reds 2nd baseman on that trip would eventually make a winter home in St. Pete and would assist St. Pete in a major spring training coup. That man … Miller Huggins.
Mayor D. B. McCay attracted the Cubs to train in Tampa in 1913. A year later Al Lang got manager Branch Rickey and the St. Louis Browns to St. Pete. I’ll discuss their beginnings in a future post.