A Lot Of Great Years

Al Lopez, Who Celebrates His 95th Birthday Today, Is More Than Just Tampa’s Baseball Patriarch – He’s Living History

By JOEY JOHNSTON

Tribune Staff Writer

TAMPA – It’s more than a conversation about baseball. With Al Lopez, Tampa’s celebrated baseball patriarch, it’s living history.

What hasn’t he seen?

As a teenager, he caught the fastballs of an aging Walter Johnson. He still can speak, with authority, about witnessing the power of Babe Ruth. Once, a fatigued Lou Gehrig stepped out of the batter’s box and turned to Lopez, the opposing catcher. “Al, can you see anything wrong with my swing?” When spring training ended, Gehrig headed north and learned about the disease that would end his career.

Lopez played for two teams that were managed by a young Casey Stengel – “he could out-talk anybody, even back then” – then spent most of his own managerial career as Stengel’s chief adversary. He interrupted a Yankees-dominated decade by winning two American League pennants with the Indians and White Sox. He is the only surviving player from the second All-Star Game (1934) and the oldest living member of baseball’s Hall of Fame.

The most surprising experience of all?

No doubt. The 21st century.

“I used to think, “Man, the year 2000 … I’ll never make it,’ ” Lopez said. “I thought it was impossible.”

But the life of Lopez – one of baseball’s most durable catchers, successful managers and gentlemanly ambassadors – has been about possibilities. Today, Lopez celebrates his 95th birthday, an occasion he will commemorate with his son, daughter-in-law, three grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren (including Al Lopez IV). Lopez’s wife, Connie, died in 1983.

“How old do I feel?” Lopez said with a laugh. “Well, I don’t look in the mirror too often. Ninety-five? You don’t think about things like this. That’s a lot of years. But I’ll tell you, a lot of great years.

“It has all fallen into place for me. I’ve always felt like I was one of the luckiest people.”

Sound Mind, Great Stories

Without back problems, he’d still be playing golf every day. But his mind is good and he tells great stories. He has his family, his visiting buddies with whom he shares daily games of gin rummy and his television, where he can follow Lou Piniella’s Devil Rays. Yes, he saw and enjoyed Lou’s recent cap-kicking tirade. He also loves how the Rays run and hustle.

The son of Spanish immigrants, by way of Cuba, Lopez never imagined such a life. He was born in Ybor City, then watched his father, Modesto, work in a cigar factory before dying of throat cancer at age 54. Lopez had just been offered $150 a month to play for the Tampa Smokers – “I probably would have done it for nothing” – thus beginning his climb toward the major leagues.

During his 19-season playing career for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians, it was a way to see the country. Once the season ended, though, his goal remained the same. He was going home.

In Brooklyn, as seasons ended, he often remembers driving straight through the night because he was so eager for a return to Tampa.

The hometown, he said, always has been kind. When named manager of the Indians in 1951, he received a parade from the locals. There always was another dinner to attend or plaque to receive. And in 1954, the city’s new spring-training stadium was named Al Lopez Field.

Lopez brought his 1959 go-go White Sox there for a game against the Cincinnati Reds. In the first inning, Lopez protested a call. The umpire told him to quiet down. “What are you gonna do? Throw me out of my own stadium? This place is named for me,” Lopez said. Undaunted, the umpire tossed him.

Al Lopez Field, razed in 1989, was on the parcel of land now occupied by the south end zone of Raymond James Stadium. Lopez has the stadium’s dedication plaque and its home plate among his memorabilia. But even more meaningfully, now there’s a bronze statue of Lopez, the catcher, at the southeast corner of what is now Al Lopez Park.

A group of citizens, led by Tony and Bertha Saladino, funded the statue’s construction because they wanted Lopez’s legacy to live through the generations.

“To be remembered like that is one of the highlights of my life,” he said.

A life he never imagined.

Baseball Took Him Places

In Tampa during the World War I era, Lopez said his family was poor. Main thoroughfares were dirt roads. His father worked constantly and his mother looked after nine children. He expected to eventually learn the cigar trade, but baseball became his escape.

The game took him places. In the corner of Lopez’s souvenir display case, there’s a photograph of him standing near President Kennedy during the first-pitch ceremony on Opening Day 1961 in Washington. There’s another shot of him, as a White House guest, sharing a laugh with President Reagan.

“A little kid from Ybor City, imagine that,” Lopez said. “How lucky can a man be? The years have been good to me.”

What hasn’t he seen?

He regrets never getting the chance to compete against Ty Cobb. He missed Honus Wagner and Nap Lajoie. Cy Young and Christy Mathewson were long gone. But he has a working knowledge of nearly every other significant player. The sport has changed, of course, even at its roots. The everyday sandlot games rarely exist, and even the core values seem different to him.

“Now everybody gives you a high-five for laying down a bunt,” Lopez said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do, move the runner over? Isn’t that just doing your job?”

He likes watching modern baseball, though. He’s particularly proud of the Tampa-bred players and still marvels over the 1990 World Series, which matched Tony La Russa’s Oakland Athletics against Piniella’s Reds.

Even for the baseball man who has seen and done it all, there are remaining goals. How about 100 birthday candles?

“Sure, I’d like to stick around,” he said, smiling. “It hasn’t changed at all for me. My back might be a little sore and I can’t do some of the things I used to do. But I really have a wonderful life.”

Al Lopez is more than a former player, more than a former manager, more than a Tampa icon. He’s living history.

AL LOPEZ FACTS

Ten things you might not know about Al Lopez:

1. In 1930, Lopez drove one over the head of Cincinnati left fielder Bob Meusel and into the stands at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. It becomes the major leagues’ last recorded bounce home run. After the season, rule changes scored such plays as ground-rule doubles.

2. He finished 10th in balloting for the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1933. He stole 10 bases to finish in a 10th-place tie in the NL and hit .301.

3. He was an NL catcher in the 1934 All-Star Game at New York’s Polo Grounds, playing the latter innings and catching Dizzy Dean. He watched from the dugout as Carl Hubbell registered consecutive strikeouts against five of baseball’s most celebrated batters (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin).

4. Not a power threat, Lopez’s season-high homer mark was eight (in 1936 and ’39).

5. As a player, he had five primary managers (Wilbert Robinson, Casey Stengel, Max Carey, Frankie Frisch and Lou Boudreau). All five are Hall of Famers. “I better have learned something from those guys,” Lopez said.

6. Upon his playing retirement in 1947, Lopez held the major-league record for most games caught (1,918). It was later broken by Bob Boone, then Carlton Fisk.

7. Lopez’s 1954 Cleveland Indians won 111 games to win the AL pennant. The New York Yankees, who seven times finished ahead of Lopez’s second-place clubs during the 1950s, won 103 games and finished eight games back. No other Yankees team won 100 games that decade. “It wasn’t like the Yankees blew it,” Lopez said. “The Yankees were great. We just beat them that time.”

8. Lopez’s managerial career ended with 1,422 wins and 1,026 losses for a .581 winning percentage, which was ninth on the all-time list.

9. When voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1977, Lopez was playing golf at Palma Ceia Country Club. He was notified of the honor by Joe Valdes, the proprietor of Spanish Park restaurant.

10. In a poll taken by retired major-leaguers in the mid-1980s, Lopez was voted the seventh-best defensive catcher and the seventh-best manager of all time.