Florida International League (1952)
Tombstone
Born: June 1952
Folded: December 14, 19521Waters, Barney. “Six-Team FIL Drafts O’Connell”. The Herald (Miami, FL). December 15, 1952
First Game: June 20, 1952 (L 6-1 vs. St. Petersburg Saints)
Last Game: September 6, 1952 (L 6-0 @ Havana Cubans)
Florida International League Championships: None
Stadium
Wickers Field (2,420)2Grace, Art. “Enthusiasm Greets Key West In Debut”. The Daily News (Miami, FL). June 21, 1952
Ownership & Affiliation
Owners: Louis Carbonell, et al.
Major League Affiliation:
Background
I love Key West. If ever win Powerball, I’m buying a bungalow someplace near the Caroline Street waterfront so that I can walk to Pepe’s and knock back baked oysters and margaritas under the stars at the open-air bar 3-4 nights a week.
Until then, I’ll have to be satisfied with the minor victory of being able to add the Conch Republic to my defunct sports team blog. Key West isn’t exactly a sporting paradise, outside of fishing. There used to be a tiny baseball stadium called Wickers Field with grandstand seating for about 1,000 fans at the intersection of Kennedy Drive and Flagler Avenue. It’s no longer there – the site is now home to some sports fields and the George Mira Football Field, named for the Key West native who enjoyed a respectable NFL career in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Before it was reconfigured, Wickers Field hosted Florida State League baseball for a few summers in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Move From Fort Lauderdale
But the first baseball team to make a home (briefly) in America’s southernmost city were the Key West Conchs of the Class B Florida International League in the summer of 1952.
The Conchs began life as the Fort Lauderdale Braves (1947-1952). Early in the 1952 season the Braves’ owners abandoned the team. The homeless ball club became a ward of the league, playing briefly as “The All-Stars” at neutral sites around Florida. The league set a deadline of June 17, 1952 to find new owners for the Braves/All-Stars or else fold the club. Louis Carbonell of Key West hastily put together a group in Key West on June 15th. Five nights later, the new Key West Conchs opened for business, with an evening game against the St. Petersburg Saints.
The photo above shows several dignitaries in the Wickers Field grandstand on opening night. The uniformed man on the far left with stogie in hand in Captain C.C. Adell, Commanding Officer of the Key West Naval Station. To his right is state senator Bernie Pappy.
Futility
The Braves/Conchs were a terrible team, the worst in the Florida International League in 1952. The club finished 40-111, a mere 63.5 games out of first place. The team only had one player who ever had played in (or would play in) the Major Leagues. 32-year Napoleon “Nap” Reyes was a Cuban who saw considerable time with the New York Giants during the World War II years, more or less a replacement player filling in for the servicemen overseas. When the war ended, Reyes went off to the Mexican minor leagues. He returned to the Majors for one single at bat with the Giants five years in later in 1950.
Demise
After the 1952 season, the Florida International League’s Lakeland Pilots club folded and the Conchs were dropped from the league to bring the loop down to an even six clubs. Owner Louis Carbonell claimed he was promised that Key West would receive the first available team the next time the FIL had an opening.
After the 1953 season, the FIL lost its most successful club, the Havana Cubans, when Havana moved to the higher level International League. Carbonell expected to get the opening, but the league gave the open spot to a group from Tallahassee instead. When Carbonell found out, he vented his spleen to the media in a story picked up by The Associated Press in February 1954:
“I am sick and tired of getting the run around from a bunch of officials of so-called organized baseball who operate their league like a teen age sandlot group…they have used us for their own convenience and utterly ignored their solemn promises to us.”
The Florida International League’s rebuke of Key West in 1954 turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Carbonell, however. The league’s financial problems proved intractable. It disbanded in mid-season five months later in July 1954.
Aftermath
The website Deadball Baseball has some nice photos and history of Wickers field here.
Pro ball returned to Key West and Wickers Field in 1969 with the Key West Padres of the Florida State League. After another year off in 1970, the Key West Sun Caps played at Wickers in 1971, followed by the Key West Conchs from 1972 to 1974 and finally the Key West Cubs in 1975, which was the final summer of pro baseball on Key West.
