Fort Lauderdale's Little Yankee Stadium: work now, play later and people power

 

Little Yankee Stadium,
State Archives of Florida

Little Yankee Stadium

Today,  Floyd V. Hull Stadium
2800 SW 8th Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315
954-828-7275

 

By Jane Feehan

Some called him “candidate for a nuthouse.” But Floyd Vance Hull, attorney and father, showed the city of Fort Lauderdale what could be done with a little elbow grease and a lot of community spirit.

In June of 1963 he presented a plan for a Little League ballpark to the city commission and its parks and advisory board. The proposed site was a “swampy” piece of “surplus” city land, not far from where the  Yankees trained. 

The catch: the park wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime; it would be paid for with donations. He asked only that the city prioritize Little League operations for 10 years in exchange for a dollar a year. Hull’s proposal raised eyebrows and stoked ridicule. Mayor Cy Young held little regard for the idea and had wanted to sell the land.

Perhaps on a dare or convinced by Hull’s enthusiasm, Fort Lauderdale approved the plan in September 1963.

Hull delivered. By January 1965 he had raised more than $200,000 in cash, materials and labor. About 1,100 contributors stepped up to the plate (and were individually credited per terms of agreement); donations continued to flow as the first phase of the project was completed that month. 

Over 60,000 cubic yards of fill was donated and then leveled at no charge. About 12,000 square feet of sod was laid by volunteers—mostly fathers, mothers, Little League umpires and players. A slogan was adopted, “work now, play later.” Lighting eventually installed was deemed as good as that of Yankee Stadium and the Orange Bowl.

Little Yankee Stadium transitioned from a crazy idea to reality. City and county officials were “astonished.” Hull lauded retired U.S Army Reserve Captain Alan Morton and his Fort Lauderdale engineering unit for bringing the project to fruition. His team of 131 reservists worked with trucks on the field as part of their weekend training commitment.

In mid-February 1965, the Federal Little League and its senior division held tryouts for 24 teams with slots for 400 kids, 9-15 years old. A tournament was held that summer. The Broward County School Board installed 2,000 feet of fencing in exchange for rights to play junior varsity football at the park, which soon held three baseball fields and one football field. Sponsors such as Powell Ford lined up to help pay for state tournaments.   

By March 1971, stadium facilities, valued at $750,000 held 1,000 seats, included a press box, concession and restroom building. Little League headquarters claimed the park to be the “finest facility of its kind in the nation" and the “number one Little League facility in the world.” 

The Big League World Series featuring 16-18 year olds, was held at Fort Lauderdale’s Little League Stadium for 29 years until 1998. Slammed by low attendance and difficulties securing hotel accommodations for its nine-day schedule, the series moved to another state. (The series ran its course from 1968 until after the 2016 games.)

Today Fort Lauderdale’s Floyd Hull Stadium, a city park, features baseball/softball facilities, grills, tables, swings and more for recreation.   

Floyd Hull, president of the local Federal Little League, the Little League Stadium and director of the Big League World Series retired in 1998 or 1999. He was born in Fort Lauderdale, graduated from Pompano Beach High School and the University of Florida law school. He served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) from 1951-1954 and as municipal judge in Fort Lauderdale. A husband and father of four, he died at 87 in 2015. 

His was a life well lived and testament to “people power.”  

Today we need more with Hull’s vision, enthusiasm and ability to rally community spirit.

 Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 10, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, May 21, 1967

Fort Lauderdale News, March 30, 1971

Fort Lauderdale News, April 3, 1973

Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 10, 1998

Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 29, 2015

Tags: Little Yankee Stadium, Floyd Hull, Fort Lauderdale sports, Florida sports, baseball, Fort Lauderdale history, Little League, Big League World Series

Boston Braves: first MLB team in Fort Lauderdale for spring training

By Jane Feehan

The first major league baseball team to come to Fort Lauderdale for spring training was the Boston Braves under manager Billy Southworth. In 1945, Logan Brown* of the baseball committee of the chamber of commerce presented an agreement to the city with the Braves’ request to submit the first bid on an updated baseball park.

The city funded improvements on the Westside baseball park on Broward Boulevard, opening the doors for and welcoming the National League's Braves. The Broward Hotel served as team headquarters but players stayed at various tourist accommodations. The Braves left after one season, citing lack of accommodations and too many distractions. The real reason was probably political: the reported arrest of Southworth after a minor traffic incident and an unhappy Boston newspaperman.

The ball park was used by a minor league team and the International League before and after the Braves briefly called Fort Lauderdale their spring training home. The Boston Braves moved and became the Milwaukee Braves in 1953. One reporter claimed the Braves conceded "Boston belonged to the Red Sox." For a very short while they captured the hearts and minds of Fort Lauderdale. 

*Brown owned Brown’s Restaurant, a popular dining spot for local politicians.

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(See index for more on baseball)

Sources:

Miami News, Aug. 7, 1945

Miami News, Jan. 9, 1947

Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale spring training history, major league spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale baseball history, Fort Lauderdale history, Boston Braves

Yankees come to Fort Lauderdale in 1962 until ...

Yankees with Gov. Bryant, 1962 Spring Training FTL
Fl. Dept. of Commerce photo

By Jane Feehan

The Yankees ball club had won their fifth consecutive world championship by 1953. In 1961 they had chalked up their 19^th world championship in 39 seasons. Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra were  names known in most American households whether their baseball games were watched or not. In 1962 they moved their spring training camp from St. Petersburg to Fort Lauderdale.  

Fort Lauderdale hotelier George “Bob” Gill encouraged friend Dan Topping, Sr., major owner* of the Yankees, to bring the team to his town. Topping owned homes in Miami and Palm Beach; the move would make sense. A proposal to construct a stadium for $450,000 (with a seating capacity of 8,340) was introduced to the city in 1960. A Yankee spring training presence would bolster the area as a camp site. The Baltimore Orioles were already in Miami; the Los Angeles Dodgers practiced at Vero Beach and the Kansas City A’s were in West Palm. 

The inaugural game March 10, 1962 proved to be a Fort Lauderdale hit. The Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles before 7,584 fans at the new ball park off  NW 55th Street. Cletis Boyer, “of all people,” hit the first ball out of “Little Yankee” stadium. Boyer, batting eighth in the Yankee lineup, hit only .244 the previous season. He popped a Billy Hoeft ball over the left field wall at the 350-foot mark in the second inning.   

But the crowd reserved their biggest cheers that day for Mickey Mantle when he crashed a 400-foot home run with Roger Maris on base, scoring two more runs. The Yanks topped the Orioles 4-1 during that inaugural game.

The Yankees trained at Fort Lauderdale Stadium - and were seen about town - until 1995. Their contribution to the city’s place as a tourist destination – and great place to live – was invaluable.

* Del Webb was also a Yankee club owner at the time.

For more on the Yankees in Fort Lauderdale, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/08/yankee-roger-maris-and-fort-lauderdales.html

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Oct. 18, 1960

Miami News, Mar 11, 1962

Drury, Jack. Fort Lauderdale, Playground of the Stars (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2008).

Yankees: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/history/timeline3.jsp

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Yankees Ball Club history, spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Bob Gill, Dan Topping, Sr., Cletis Boyer, Mickey Mantle, 

Fort Lauderdale Tarpons - Minor League Baseball, city pastime, Westside Park and ...

Before Westside Park, Stranahan Field, Fort Lauderdale High School
 State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale was fully engaged in baseball, the National Pastime*, by 1913. That’s when pioneer Frank Stranahan donated and cleared land for the sport. The Tarpons, later acknowledged as the “representative team” of the city, played its first game July 4 that year against Stuart at the new Stranahan Field.

The city upped its endorsement of baseball as a community pastime in 1925 by designating $15,000 for construction of Municipal Field, later known as Westside Park. Located off Northwest 4^th Street, the four-acre park included a concrete grandstand for 600 spectators with concession stands to sell sandwiches and soft drinks. Lauded as perhaps the finest in the state, the park included dressing rooms and showers below the grandstand to serve home and away teams. Baseball stories and stats filled sports pages of the day, so a press box in the grandstand hosted assigned reporters and photographers. Bleachers were added after opening day, July 19, 1925.

As master of ceremonies at 3:30 that afternoon, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Will Reed proudly led the Tarpons from the dugout onto the field under rain-threatened skies. About 600 eager fans filled the grandstand. It was time for the team, managed by “Pop” Lewis, to “cross bats” with the Coconut Grove team, nicknamed the Schulzmen and managed by “Rabbit” Schulz.

Skies opened up after a few innings, soaking the field and equipment; the game was called but soon resumed. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Tarpons lost to Coconut Grove 6-3, the first of a four-game loosing streak. According to the Fort Lauderdale News sports reporter Howard Babb, the “team lost after many innings of disturbed playing.”

The Tarpons, a Minor League Baseball team played in the Florida State League in 1928 when its teams included the Fort Meyers Palms, Clearwater Pelicans, West Palm Beach Sheriffs, the Sanford Celeryfeds, the Tampa Smokers and a list of others with just as interesting names. The Tarpons, affiliated with the Pittsburg Pirates, also played for the Florida East Coast League from 1940 to 1942. They won a championship in 1940. The roster of teams in the FECL included the Miami Beach Flamingos, the Miami Wahoos and the Fort Pierce Bombers.

The Fort Lauderdale Tarpons folded in 1942 due to financial difficulties and World War II concerns, but its demise did not spell the end of the city’s affiliation with baseball. Fort Lauderdale hosted spring training for the Boston Braves in 1946 (see https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/07/boston-braves-first-mlb-team-in-fort.html) and the New York Yankees for a few years beginning in 1962 (see https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/yankees-come-to-fort-lauderdale-in-1962.html)

Westside Park closed in 1957. Today, it is the site of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department Headquarters.

* The term  "National Pastime" was linked to baseball as early as 1856 in news stories.

Sources:

Miami Herald, July 18, 1921

Lineup for park's opening day, Jul. 19, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, July 20,1925

Fort Lauderdale News, July 20, 1928

Fort Lauderdale News, April 26, 1942

Wikipedia

 Tags: Minor League Baseball, Fort Lauderdale baseball, National pastime, Fort Lauderdale history

Yankees film in Fort Lauderdale - Safe at Home!

Fort Lauderdale Stadium, 1996
Florida State Archives, Dept. of Commerce

The Yankee baseball team held Spring training in Fort Lauderdale during the 1960s after local hotelier Bob Gill encouraged the club’s owner, Dan Topping Sr., to come to the growing city. Stories about team legends Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Whitey Ford abound and firmly claim a place in this city’s celebrity history.

Part of Yankee history includes filming of the kid’s movie Safe at Home! in 1961 in Fort Lauderdale and Pompano. Hollywood, as captivated as the nation was with Roger Maris’s successful bid to break Babe Ruth’s homerun record during the 1961 season, thought a movie with Mantle and Maris would be a hit. (Where the Boys Are also filmed in Fort Lauderdale, was released in 1960).

Local public relations guru, Jack Drury, who played a small part as a police officer, arranged for the film crew to stay at the beach side Trade Winds Hotel (later associated with the wild Candy Store and its wet T-shirt contests).

Fort Lauderdale

The movie starred Mantle, Maris, Don Collier, Patricia Barry, William Frawley (of I Love Lucy fame) and Bryan Russell as the kid who told friends he knew the players, but did not. Team Manager Ralph Hauk also appeared. According to Drury who has written about Fort Lauderdale’s celebrity past, it was Frawley’s last feature film.

By all accounts, working on the film provided Spring training diversion for players. Mickey Mantle claimed he forgot a few of his lines but wasn’t concerned because “they didn’t want me for my acting ability.”

Safe at Home!, while not a box office hit, was continuation of a Hollywood tradition featuring sports stars in their productions; Babe Ruth appeared in 10 films, Olympian swimmer Johnny Weissmuller played Tarzan in a number of films and the tradition continues …

Safe at Home! is available to rent or purchase from Amazon. 

Copyright © 2015, 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Drury, Jack. Fort Lauderdale, Playground of the Stars (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2008).

IMDB.org

Sun-Sentinel, Apr. 21, 1989

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Filmed in Fort Lauderdale, Yankees in Fort Lauderdale, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford William Frawley, film researcher Jane Feehan

Yankee Roger Maris and Fort Lauderdale's Nick's Cocktail Lounge

Roger Maris (L) Mickey Mantle 1962
State of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

Some say baseball great Roger Maris* (1934-1985) was never popular with the press, that he was baseball’s angriest man.  Whether true or not, anger at being charged with assault and battery in Fort Lauderdale in April, 1965 may have played a part in his acquittal.

Partying after curfew during spring training season in Fort Lauderdale, Yankee right fielder Maris and teammate infielder Clete Boyer (1937-2007) got into a fracas at Nick’s Cocktail Lounge, 2775 E. Sunrise Boulevard. Erstwhile model Jerry Modzelewski claimed Maris struck him in the throat but Maris said his only contact was when he was shoved into the model. Bar owner, Nick Sindicich** jumped in and tried to break up the fight with a headlock of one of the participants.

Maris, who was defended by attorney William Leonard, did not expect to take the stand at the April 7 trial. But when he thought testimony of others was leading the trial in the wrong direction he testified before Judge Arnold Grevior. 

Red in the face and neck with anger, Maris told his side of the story. Maris avoided placing blame on Boyer, who was also charged, but it appeared Boyer played a more active role. Judge Grevior acquitted Maris, saying he had “more than a reasonable doubt in his mind.” Maris filed a civil law suit against Modzelewski two days later.  

Boyer, also charged with assault and battery, was given a suspended sentence and a $175 fine by Judge Grevior at a Nov. 29 hearing. Boyer was not present, but Grevior delivered a message through his lawyer promising a 30 day jail sentence if the ball player got into trouble again in Fort Lauderdale.

For more on the Yankees team in Fort Lauderdale, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/yankees-come-to-fort-lauderdale-in-1962.html

Copyright © 2013, 2022. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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*Maris hit a Major League record 61 home runs during the 1961 season for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs in 1927. He was an American League Most Valuable Player (1960–1961), All-Star (1959-1962), and Gold Glove winner (1960). He appeared in seven World Series, five as a member of the Yankees and two with the St. Louis Cardinals.

**Nick’s, located on the Intracoastal near Sunrise Boulevard, was a popular hangout for the Yankees. The bar closed in 1987; Nick Sindicich died in 2000 at 76. 

*** Boyer usually played third base but he occasionally played second base and shortstop. Other than for the Yankees, where he played in five consecutive pennant-winning games, Boyer also played for the Cardinals, the Kansas City Athletics and the Atlanta Braves. He also spent four seasons with the Taiyo Whales of Nippon.

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Sources: 

Miami News, April 8, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 29, 1965

Sun-Sentinel, March 24, 2000

Wikipedia

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Yankees in Fort Lauderdale, Roger Maris, historical researcher, film researcher, baseball