Florida Spring Baseball 100 Years Ago: Black and White

Posted on February 8, 2015 by floridatraveler

Florida newspapers are starting to run articles about the upcoming Florida Grapefruit League. Professional baseball has a long history in the state. The first exhibition game took place in Jacksonville in 1888 between the Washington Nationals and New York Giants.

Connie Mack, who was a player on the first visit, was manager in 1900 when the Nationals returned to spring train in Jacksonville.  Mack felt the lack of good competition and distance from major cities made Florida a poor choice to play baseball.  He could hardly imagine his grandson Connie Mack III would one day be a U.S. Senator from Florida.

It was not until 1913 when the Chicago Cubs  and the St Louis Browns came to Tampa that Florida spring training was reborn. The next year the St. Louis Cardinals arrived in Saint Augustine and the Philadelphia Athletics selected Jacksonville.

One hundred years ago a real spring baseball league was scheduled for these four teams, but they weren’t the only professional league in Florida.  For ten years the Palm Beach resort hotels – the Breakers and the Royal Poinciana – had operated baseball games with their African-American employees to entertain the winter guests.

In 1915 the Breakers hired players from the Lincoln Giants of the Negro League while the Royal Poinciana recruited players from the Indianapolis ABCs.  Although outscored 61 to 49 in the contests, the Breakers Hotel team won the series 9 games to 6 games.

floridatraveler BREAKERS HOTEL baseball team

The 1915 Breakers team: 4 Hall of Fame Players

Led by pitcher Joe “Smokey” Williams, the Breakers team had four players (Williams, Pete Hill, Louis Santop, John Henry Lloyd) now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  The top hitter for the Poinciana team was Ben Taylor, another Hall of Famer.

One hundred years ago, spring professional baseball exhibition games were both black and white.  Interestingly, the tourist elite of Vanderbilts, Astors, and Morgans were watching the black teams.

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Florida’s Best Wineries Are Growing Attractions

Posted on February 2, 2015 by floridatraveler

Florida will never compete with California or France for its vineyards. Most Florida wineries produce variations of sweet and semi-sweet muscaline grape wines.

Traditionalists like my wife will not be very impressed with these fruit-oriented wines, designed to attract customers.  In fact, some Florida wineries produce some of the most outrageously experimental wines you can imagine.  Visiting a Florida vineyard, however, has become a popular tourist and resident activity.

What are our favorite Florida wineries?

Lakeridge Winery and Vineyards, just off US27 in Clermont, is so close to Orlando and WDW, it can’t help be the most visited free wine-tasting tour and exhibit.  The entire complex is easy to see in the rolling Central Florida rolling hills.

floridatraveler lakeridge-winery

The Lakeridge Winery Is A Popular Destination

The Rosa Fiorelli Winery, located east of Bradenton, is the most European styled winery with rustic barns and acres of muscadine grapes.  Fiorelli makes only traditional wines and has many award-winning selections.

Schnebly Redland’s Winery, located south of Miami in Homestead, is not a vineyard asmuch as a large winery complex with a colonial style main house and gardens with waterfalls and tiki-huts.  This is an exotic fruits-only place so if you are not into passion fruit or avocado wines, this might not be your show.

Monticello Vineyards and Winery near I-10 (exit 225) in Monticello in the Panhandle is operated by Ladybird Organics.  Their 18 varieties of muscadine grapes are perhaps the best in Florida.  The shortcoming is its location and it is only open Saturday to Monday.

floridatraveler monticello vineyards in october

Monticello Vineyards in October

Florida’s funkiest winery is the Henscratch Farms Vineyard and Winery off US98 via Orange Blossom to 980 Henscratch Road in Lake Placid.  The 12 acre working farm has vineyards filled with 200 free roaming chickens including Aracuana hens that lay green eggs.  Your kids will love feeding the hens and visiting the antique country store.  It’s Dr. Seuss selling Red Rooster and Country Blueberry Wine.

floridatraveler Henscratch Farms

The Henscratch Farms Vineyard

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Florida Food: In Search of the Perfect Deviled Crab

Posted on January 25, 2015 by floridatraveler

There are a lot of Florida food favorites such as Key Lime Pie and Stone Crab Claws, but no food can cause more debate than the humble Deviled Crab.

A deviled crab (called croqueta de jaiba in Spanish) is a large crab meat croquette beloved by both Latin and non-Latin, rich and poor throughout the Tampa Bay area and across Florida.

The deviled crab was created in Ybor City in the 1920’s during a long cigar-workers strike and the deviled crab, made from local blue crab meat, day-old Cuban bread, and Cuban-style chilau sauce, became almost over night the cheap lunch break meal of choice.  The food spread to non-Latin locals and then to winter visitors.  Today, some tourists seek out deviled crabs for their first local dish in Florida.

floridatraveler deviled crab and Cuban sandwich (no mayo)

A deviled crab & Cuban sandwich (no mayo)

A good deviled crab should have a thick enough shell so it can be held up and eaten by one hand, the original way the immigrant workers eat this meal.  Putting a fork to one is unacceptable.  If you must have a fork: go back to your Maryland crab cakes. But the cake should be a golf ball size chuck of crab meat inside or you will also feel the wrath of true deviled crab enthusiasts.

My wife’s family would drive across Tampa to the Seabreeze Restaurant on  Causeway Boulevard on McKay Bay just to buy their popular deviled crabs.  I even remember people loading up with deviled crabs to take into the Causeway Drive-in down the road.

When this seafood institution closed down, there was panic among its regulars. Knowing the Seabreeze name was meaningful, several small restaurants were started by former employees in Brandon and Ybor City, but for whatever reason they weren’t the same.

floridatraveler seabreeze restaurant

 A New Seabreeze Restaurant in a Historic Tour Bus

In the last few years a new recreation of Seabreeze was opened on North Boulevard, near the west side of the Hillsborough River.  The Seabreeze Deviled Crabs and Seafood is hardly a dining experience.  People come because the deviled crabs are made like the old restaurant by a former employee.

Besides an open-aired stand selling live blue crabs in tanks, this Seabreeze makes its deviled crabs and Cuban sandwiches in a converted tour bus once used by the Weeki Wachee tourist attraction.  The classic bus was found in a dump and restored as a classic food wagon.

It seems fitting to me that deviled crab making is located in a mobile food spot since that is how the Florida dish was first sold in the 1920’s.

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The Tamiami Trail Was Conceived 100 Years Ago

Posted on January 18, 2015 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler US41 postcard

In 1915 a group of Fort Myers businessmen began a plan to build a Tampa to Miami highway along the curving coastline of Southwest Florida and then across ninety miles of the most famous swamp in America, the Everglades.

Their efforts were made expedient for a group of inland political leaders were proposing a Cross State Highway from Tampa to Arcadia then to LaBelle and Immokalee and across the interior on a horizontal line to Miami.  This latter road would avoid the west to east route across the Everglades, a feat considered impossible to many engineers in 1915.

In the political conflict between the inlanders and the coastal developers and city folk, the latter gained state approval.  It helped that urban counties like Hillsborough, Manatee, and Sarasota contributed money to the development of their area of “the Tamiami Trail“, known to most tourists today as US41.

It was in Southwest Florida where the two lane highway faced financial obstacles until a New York developer named Barron Collier (Collier County) donated the outrageous sum of one million dollars in private funds.  Collier was also a marketing genius promoting the project during the Florida Land Boom as a crusade to conquer the Everglades.

floridatraveler tamiami trail walking dredge

Marksman at top of dredge is looking for alligators.

Despite these efforts, construction stalled by 1921 when builders tried to build a roadbed into the Everglades.  By April of 1923, many residents thought the project was doomed, until a group of 23 daring West Coast civilians with two Seminole guides decided to cross the swamps in a motorcade of one commissary truck, seven Model T Fords, and an Elcar.

These Tamiami Trailblazers reached Miami and affirmed the possibility of completing the roadway.  The next year the Florida State Road Department incorporated the Tamiami Trail into the Florida Highway System.

floridatraveler tamiami trailblazers

The Tamiami Trailblazers Prepare for the Everglades

The Tamiami Trail was completed in 1928, a task that took 13 years of hardship. Besides the swamp and alligators, the workers had to build bridges to allow the north-south flow of water into the Everglades.

Today most tourists choose Alligator Alley, a toll road and part of I-75 to go from East Naples to Miami (Fort Lauderdale).  Driving the old Tamiami Trail, however, connects you with the Old Florida, although I confess I dreaded the drive during summer thunderstorms when I went from Fort Myers to the University of Miami.

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Florida’s Faux Lighthouses Are Attractions In Themselves

Posted on January 13, 2015 by floridatraveler

Florida has 32 once operating lighthouses along its thousand miles of shoreline and they are popular tourist attractions.  There are also dozens of lighthouses that have become popular landmarks even if they never saved a ship at sea.

Faux or fake lighthouses have never been working United States lighthouses.  Many, however, are so realistic they fool visitors and have even become popular nautical markers for experienced sailors despite being mainly restaurants or bed and breakfasts.

floridatraveler faux lighthouse boca-chica-light-house-

Boca Chica Light

One of the most popular faux lighthouses is the 65-foot tall Boca Chica Lighthouse, built by technology tycoon Mark Honeywell for his private yacht center.  The Bureau of Lighthouses forced Honeywell to turn off the light for it confused navigators. Still, it is used today as a major landmark for divers at Biscayne National Underwater Park.

Many faux lighthouses are centerpieces for restaurants and shops and marinas like the lighthouse at St. Johns Pass Village on Madeira Beach or the Whale Harbor Lighthouse in Islamorada at MM 83.5 on the Overseas Highway.

Perhaps the most attractive faux lighthouse in a resort is Faro Blanco Light (1952), a 50-foot beauty in Marathon at the Faro Blanco Resort.

floridatraveler faux lighthouse faro_blanco

Faro Blanco Lighthouse

There are private lighthouses located miles from the ocean such as the 35-foot tall Mount Dora Lighthouse (1988), a navigational marker on Lake Dora, or the lighthouses at The Villages.    The Tierra Verde Lighthouse (2005) is a replica of the popular Boca Grande Lighthouse, but is a privately operated light protecting the marine environment of the Tampa Bay estuary.

You can stay in a faux lighthouse, many on the beach.  The largest collection are found along Fletcher Avenue in Fernandina Beach.  Our favorite is Katie’s Light, even though as a Chesapeake-style lighthouse it may seem 400 miles too south.

floridatraveler faux lighthouse katies light

Katies Light

On your next drive along the Florida coast, be on the lookout for Florida’s faux lighthouses. They are worth a look even if they don’t have a nautical purpose.

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It’s Manatee Viewing Time In Florida

Posted on January 4, 2015 by floridatraveler

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Between January and March Florida’s manatee population heads toward the warmer waters of Florida riverside springs and  power plants.  It is an important time for the survival of the manatees who numbered 4,831 a year ago despite a record 829 known deaths in 2013.

While boat propellers, the Red Tide, and pollution are causes for the deaths of many manatees, freezing water temperatures can cause serious damage to these endangered giants.  For people who don’t scuba or snorkel or kayak Florida’s rivers, the winter gatherings of manatees give Florida visitors a front row look at the gentle sea cows.

Our favorite viewing areas for manatees include:

The Manatee Viewing Center at Apollo Beach: Tampa Electric’s power plant at Big Bend sends a clean warm discharge that attracts large herds of manatees to the walkways of this federally designated sanctuary.

Homosassa River State Park‘s home population of manatees usually have a lot of mantees from the Gulf of Mexico and the park has three manatee programs everyday as well as an underwater observatory.

Three Sisters Springs off King’s Bay on the Crystal River attracts over 100 manatees in the winter months. While canoe and kayak rentals can bring you above the springs, there is a viewing boardwalk on the shoreline.

Haulover Canal in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is where manatees swim from Mosquito Lagoon into the Indian River.

Blue Spring State Park in Orange City attracts some 300 manatees to travel southward along the St. Johns River in search of warmer waters.  During the winter months diving and canoeing are prohibited to give the manatees full rule. The good news: the manatees come near the viewing areas.

You will find manatees along the rivers of South Florida from November to March so keep your eyes open for Florida’s slow moving sea cows.

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Florida Enters 2015 With A New Political Status

Posted on December 31, 2014 by floridatraveler

Jeb Bush and his brother George

Florida has officially replaced New York as the third most populated state in the United States and with its new position, Florida becomes an even greater political target in the 2016 Presidential year.

For the first time in its history the Sunshine State even has two realistic Presidential hopefuls in former Governor Jeb Bush and U. S. Senator  Marco Rubio.  Both have the extra advantage of being attractive to Hispanic voters.

Despite’s its booming population growth and national image Florida has never produced a Presidential candidate although the state could brag its first Territorial Governor became President.  Andrew Jackson, however,  ran from his home state of Tennessee.

Part of Florida’s weak national political history is the reality the state was the least populated state in the South as recently as 1920.  The other factor is that “The Rich Boy of the South” has a distinctive history since the Florida Land Boom that has turned from  its Southern roots.

Ask a person in Alabama or Georgia is Florida is a “Southern” state, they will bluntly tell you “No.”  Neither is Florida a Northern state.  People view Florida as Florida and its stand alone status has meant that Floridians are not identified with any region of the nation, but as a unique and separate entity.

That could be both good and bad for Florida’s Presidential candidates. At least now everyone across the nation will know Florida is now one of the Big Three.

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Christmas In Florida

Posted on December 23, 2014 by floridatraveler

000 santa boat parade

Coming from New England I still have people up North who ask me if I miss the snow during the holidays.

My answer is always “No”…. in fact, most of my Christmas days up North were snowless, but filled with freezing temperatures and cold winds.  I have no fond memories of crossing a barren front yard landscape looking for my newspaper tossed wildly by a bicyclist caught in a cross-wind.

000 santa in florida

I will confess celebrating Santa in Florida took some adjustment.  Instead of a downtown Christmas parade like they had in Framingham, Massachusetts, the favorite choice is standing on a dock watching a Christmas boat parade.

Parents don’t have to explain how Santa can fit down the chimney since so many Florida homes (like mine) have no chimney.  Santa has the world’s best pass key.

When you live in Florida, people visit you so you can disregard the fun of airport crowds and driving ice-filled roads and shipping gifts to people who live in Florida.

Merry Christmas to all.

M. C. Bob Leonard

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Christmas in Florida Is A Post Office and a Fort

Posted on December 15, 2014 by floridatraveler

floridatraveler FORT-CHRISTMAS

This is the season in Central Florida when people drive Southeast from Orlando to the town of Christmas to mail their Santa letters and special packages.  But Christmas, Florida, is not named just for holiday cheer – on Christmas day in 1837 2,000 soldiers started the construction for a fort to protect the area farmers from Seminole attacks.

Today there is a wonderful replica of that Second Seminole War fort filled with pioneer and Seminole artifacts developed by the Fort Christmas Historical Society and the Orange County Park Department.  There is even a store with facilities and three large picnic pavilions at the well-designed complex.

floridatraveler christmas-1917-BEEHEAD-ranchouse

Fort Christmas is more than just a wooden fort.  The park contains a dozen Florida Cracker farmhouses dating from the 1870’s to the 1930’s.  The rural setting makes the village appear to be realistic and several times each year major events are held to honor Florida’s past.

My favorite sites include a 1906 school complete with a delightful lunchroom and the 1917 Beehead Ranch House which has all the farm equipment needed to operate a frontier business.

If you are driving from Orlando to the Florida East Coast you might want to take a side trip off County Road 420 to see Fort Christmas.

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5 REASONS WHY CHRISTMAS AT WDW IS WORTH A VISIT

Posted on December 8, 2014 by floridatraveler

 WDW mickey & minnie red and green

The holiday season is a special time to visit Walt Disney World and visitors who think the parks will be too crowded or filled with angry shoppers are badly mistaken.  Here are my reasons why my family always makes a December visit to WDW:

 (1) Great weather and manageable crowds are common during this season.    With less chance of rain and with temperatures usually in the 60’s and 70’s, cruising the vast facilities is less tiring. 

 (2) Epcot’s Candlelight processional is spectacular.  Guest celebrities like Edward Jamess Olmos and Blair Underwood narrate the action of a massive chorus and 50-piece orchestra that overwealms of the stage at the American Adventure.

WDW santa and mrs claus at epcot

 (3) The New York Streets at Hollywood Studios are filled with the millions of dancing lights of the Osbourne Family of Arkansas.  Besides a man-made snow shower and lots of entertainment, you can purchase “Mickey Mouse Glow Ears” which glow in sync with the music and lights around you.

 (4) While the most crowded event, the Magic Kingdom’s Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party includes the most colorful night parade and fireworks celebrating the holidays.

WDW italian flag performers

 (5) At Epcot’s World Showcase the holiday traditions (including the New Year) are celebrated at each country with great family activities.  I love the Feliz Navidad mariachi band and dancers, the Chinese New Year Lion Dancers, and the Italian Flag street performers.

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