St. Pete Needs Quality Baseball
The first article in the Coffee Pot series was intended to mark the beginning of the piece. Circumstances took me back a bit in history and I found some fascinating information relating to St. Pete’s quest for Spring Training baseball. This information comes primarily from the archives of the St. Petersburg Daily Times.
The original founders of St. Petersburg had designs to make St. Pete a deep-water port and the bay shoreline to become a great commercial port. But others offered a different vision. William Straub editor of the St. Pete Times and C. Perry Snell, a prominent real estate investor, began buying the underwater lots on the shore. They refused to allow these lots to be developed into a commercial shoreline. Others eventually came around to the idea of preserving the beauty of the waterfront and banking on tourism to fuel the economy.
By September 1912, the Board of Trade is making noise about building a park as near as possible to the center of town (see the “Fast Baseball” post) With this in mind by October 1912, the Board of Trade appointed a three person “Entertainment” committee that consisted of H. B. Smitz, E. H. Ladd and Gene Bevill. Bevill was the manager of the local town team. Smitz and Ladd had some big-league connections as did D. E. Beech, Secretary of the Board of Trade.
The committee’s task was twofold: to address the ballpark situation and to decide what type of baseball product would entertain the tourists and invigorate the locals in the winter months. The ballpark situation centered around the concept of “fast baseball”. A person should be able to leave their house or place of work at 2:45 for a 3:00 pm game and be back at their home by 5:00 pm. Up to this time St. Pete had been a one field town. When the park at the reservoir in the center of town was taken out to enlarge the drinking water supply, a park was developed southwest of town towards Gulfport. C. C. Symonette had obtained use of a piece of property owned by the railway company along their line from St. Pete to Gulfport and turned it into a ballfield. It was known as Symonette field and was home to the newly formed St. Pete Saints semi-pro outfit. When Symonette had to give up running the team, the railway company upgraded the facility, and it became known as Guava Park in 1913. Either name, it was considered too far away to meet the expectations of fast baseball. (Note: This location is believed to be just west of the property of the Thurgood Marshall Middle School.)
The second task was to identify the best way to deliver winter baseball that would appeal to “Northerners” who were used to high quality baseball. This was evident by the fact that when the “snowbirds” arrived, professional baseball players who needed a way to make money in the off-season (similar to today’s minor league players) were willing to come down and play also. These players would form teams to play with some “locals” throughout the winter. Developing high-quality winter baseball was the centerpiece for many potential scenarios, all of which entailed hiring established minor leaguers to come to play.
On the ballpark issue, little progress was made until it was announced the Browns were coming for Spring Training. There was one offer to lease a southside property that was relatively close into town (between 2nd & 3rd St. S. and 4th & 5th Ave) called the Fisher property. The owners were asking $1000 per year over a three-year term. The next month, another property was considered that was a bit further south (6th Ave. S.) but still in the Bayboro area. After those two plots were out of consideration, the committee was back to petitioning the city to redevelop the reservoir area (aka Mirror Lake), which most who weighed in on the ballpark issue felt was the best location. The original park was built so that home plate and at least some of the infield was located near today’s shuffleboard club. It had a couple of issues to begin with. Centerfield was closest to the lake and when a good rain came through deep center could be as much as a foot deep in water. Also, the entire park was on an uphill grade so the pitcher would actually be pitching uphill to the batter. I’m sure a mound was constructed for the Reds appearance in 1908.
The city wouldn’t cave. They were completing building a sewer to drain water off into the bay. In late 1912, a dredge is moved from the bay to the reservoir to deepen it and totally killed the prospect of placing a park there. Not having a close-in park also made it a conundrum for what type of baseball they wanted to support.
Alternatives proposed were: hire two connected managers to recruit high-end players to play each other two to four games per week; form three teams and play a “tournament” season between the three; or form one team and play in league against teams potentially from Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, Tampa, Bradenton and/or Sarasota. Another possibility centered on word that Charlie (Charles) Carr, a turn of the century major league player and current minor league manager, was looking to start a baseball school to run during the winter. The idea would be him to bring about 30 professionals looking to stay in shape and/or improve their game. The committee felt he could form two squads to play two to four times per week. Finally, Carr responded that he was more likely basing the school in Texas.
Now what? The pursuit of a major league team to train here begins in earnest. Look for the Prequel, Part 2.