The Browns are coming!
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.
By July 1913, the Board of Trade sub-committee responsible for the provision of baseball in the winter have zeroed in on the St. Louis Browns. There are connections at play. The Cubs happily training in Tampa would like an American League club training nearby that they could play and are encouraging Browns owner Robert Hedges to bring his team across the bay. B. M. Murphy, Hedges brother-in-law, is now residing in St. Pete and is also pulling for Hedges to bring the team to town.
Branch Rickey joined Hedges and the Browns during the 1913 season first as an executive assistant before promotion to vice president, secretary and eventually manager for the 1914 season. This gives St. Pete another connection as D. E. Beech, secretary of the Board of Trade is an old college friend of Rickey. It doesn’t hurt St. Pete’s case with Rickey, a devout Christian, that the town is dry by law and playing baseball on Sunday when admission is charged is illegal also.
In September, Hedges arrives in St. Pete and tours both the Coffee Pot and Kerr properties. Hedges chooses the Kerr property as his preference although he indicates both properties are acceptable. The headline in the St. Louis Globe explains the deal like this; “Mr. Rickey Had A Friend And Hedges Caught a Shark: Browns Train In Florida”. That’s actually a pretty good synopsis. The rest of the story goes something like this: Beech gets in contact in with Rickey and congratulates him on his elevation to vice-president and manager of the Browns. The Globe makes it seem as though it was an in-person contact but doesn’t explicitly say so. Beech inquires with Rickey about the possibility of training in St. Pete. Rickey replies it is out of his hands and that Beech should write to Hedges.
When Beech gets back to his office he does send a letter to Hedges. Hedges responds and arranges a trip to St. Pete perhaps thinking it is a good excuse to drop in on his sister and brother-in-law. The morning after the park location visits (Sat., Sept. 20). Hedges accompanies his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. & Mrs. V. M. Murphy on a fishing expedition. They board the boat of Paul Boardman who is a Board of Trade member and also an organizer and manager of the local amateur team.
At 6 am, they head into Tampa Bay towards Pinellas Point at the southern end of the peninsula. Fishing for mackerel, they have much success hauling in a reported 30. The big news though is that Murphy is part of the fun of hauling in a 300-pound shark. They return around noon with the mackerel and the shark. Hedges gets pictures with the shark to take back to St. Louis with him.
At the Board of Trade, the Baseball Committee and other members are working on developing an agreement to bring the Browns. About 3 pm Hedges arrives at the Board and by 5 pm they have reached an agreement.
On the 21st, the St. Pete Baseball and Amusement Company is formed for purposes of conducting the business of spring training. The contract between the SPBAC and the Browns is signed on this day. It is potentially a 5-year agreement.
Again, modern history credits Al Lang with being the impetus behind forming the company. That may be true but, the incorporation documents list seven directors and none of them are Lang. The contract signed the next day with the Browns also have several names signing on behalf of the company. Some are different from the day prior, none belong to Lang.
St. Pete now joins Tampa in drawing the ire of other spring training venues as they begin the tradition of actually paying some of the costs of the team in order to get them to come to their town. Both towns’ contract calls for them to cover a number of the team’s expenses. In turn for the company’s financial responsibility, they keep the gate for a chance to turn a profit. St. Pete, views this as an opportunity to advertise their tiny town to the St. Louis market. Given St. Louis is the furthest west major league town, the perhaps have the broadest area coverage of the entire league. As part of the deal, the Browns are required to bring reporters from five of their newspapers so the dateline St. Petersburg will be blared across the Midwest.
In November, Capt. V. A. Ridgely of the baseball company travels to visit Jacksonville spring training parks to get some tips. T. S. Brown is named groundskeeper for the ballpark. The Browns sent their head groundskeeper, Sam Barnes, to supervise the playing field construction. Once the contract of the ballpark was signed, the Snell and Hamlett company, the property owners cleared and graded the site in just a few days. Construction began in earnest for a mid-February opening.