Re-published with permission from the Tampa Tribune

Rodriguez Retires Back to League

BOB BELLONE , Tribune Correspondent Friday June 7, 1996

TAMPA — A rusty batting cage stands — barely — about a Fred McGriff blast from where the Atlanta Braves slugger and other major-leaguers first wielded a bat. Future generations of West Tampa Little Leaguers can rest assured they'll have a new cage in which to develop their home run swings because Lorenzo "Tapi" Rodriguez is on a mission. Again. It was to Rodriguez the neighborhood once turned to help establish a league for its youth.

"The man knew nothing about Little League, not one thing," said Frank Cacciatore, who with Frank Mendez came calling on Rodriguez for assistance one day in 1961. "Now he's Mr. Little League." The two men were well aware of what Rodriguez did know — lots of people and how to get things done. "I don't know what [Little League] is, but I'm interested," he told his suitors at the time. "I was very active in civic organizations," said Rodriguez, who eventually drove the project and has played an active role in Little League ever since.

Practically overnight, Rodriguez went from chief scavenger for field construction to league president at West Tampa. By 1970, he was overseeing half the leagues in Hillsborough County as District 6 administrator. Rodriguez, now 80, is stepping down this summer after devoting more than a quarter century to the position. "We'll miss him terribly," said Patsy Kendall, his secretary and friend since 1973 on the all-volunteer district staff. "He's a lot more easy going than the rest of us. He's very diplomatic, and he knows the right things to say."

Rodriguez apparently said all the right things 35 years ago when he persuaded Tampa officials to lease a portion of a MacFarlane Park golf course to the fledgling league for one dollar a year. "We picked a corner where there was a few acres not being used," he said. That intersection of Pine and Jamaica streets is now home to Lorenzo "Tapi" Rodriguez Field, the cornerstone of a now-sprawling baseball complex. To start it, Rodriguez and others scoured the county and came back to West Tampa with fencing and a lighting system from abandoned facilities. "We used to be there, a big group, every Saturday and Sunday and during the evenings," Rodriguez said. "We built everything from scratch."

Rodriguez — whose son Larry played on West Tampa's Little League World Series team in 1969 and on its 1970 Senior League World Championship team — now senses a new calling. "We need a batting cage real bad," he said. "Our batting cage is rusty and coming apart. And we need a pitching machine."  

Consider it done.

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