Category: Tampa Bay
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Origins of the Florida State Negro Baseball League (FSNBL)
The Florida State Negro Baseball League was the top tier of negro baseball in Florida in terms of play and producing talent for higher level teams, particularly the Negro major leagues. It was founded, disintegrated and reformed over the time period from 1932 until around 1953 after which while the league still existed it lost…
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Chronicler of Negro Baseball in Florida
E. H. “Eugene” or “Gene McLin” This article uses the term “Negro” in order to stay consistent with the times and with McLin’s own words. Little is known of “Negro Baseball” of any kind in Florida. Due to a dearth of Negro newspapers in Florida there was seldom coverage of negro happenings that did not…
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“Fast Baseball”
A term from the early years In researching the early days of baseball in St. Pete, two “must haves” were made clear; a downtown ballpark and fast baseball. I saw the term “fast baseball” from 1902 and into the 20’s, so I Googled. All of those searches included AI-generated ones talked about a hard pitch…
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MLB Players Born in the Region
The Top 10 by WAR The Tampa Bay region has been the birthplace of 195 major league players thus far. This number includes a handful of Negro League players added to the rolls this year (2024) by MLB as well as a handful from Pasco and Hernando counties. Thus far three Hall of Famers were…
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Spring Training in the Region
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…