Wes Singletary Author & Historian on MLB HOF Al Lopez Q & A with AlanAlfordSportsTalkShow.com

Yes, this is Alan from the Alan Alpha Sports Talk show. So I wanted to get your thoughts. We just had the Oscars here. I wanted to get your best ad lib for none of us who have, well, some of us who have never met Al Lopez, your best acting of how Al Lopez would just go about his day. Oh, well, first of all, I'd have to sit down and get a bunch of dominoes out here. You showed up at Al's house a certain time of the day, you'd knock on the door. My brother could tell you, Joe went over there one time to get Al to sign something for me. And some other guy would come to the door, yeah, can I help you? I'd say, yeah, I'm here to see Al. What do you want? Well, I'm here. I got something for Wes. Hey, Al. Some guy says he's Wes Singletary's brother. Yeah. And then Al would come to the door. Oh, yeah. You look like it. You look like Wes. What do you need? You know, I'd like you to sign this for Wes. Yeah. Wes is a nice kid. Here, I'll sign it for him, you know. Al's fingers are all like this. Here, I'll sign this for you. You know, but Al was a nice guy. You go to his house, and this guy, you know, from the time I was a kid, he's just like this hero. But he lived in this real modest three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house, brick ranch house. You pull up there, and you say, oh, my God, Al, boxwood hedges out front. But then you go in, it takes you to the Florida room, and there's Tampa Bay, you know. You walk out, there's a pool, and there's a seawall, and there's Tampa Bay. So he had a real modest house, but it was right on the water. Of course, after he passed away, they sold the house, and he built one of those frickin' big mansions out there. But Al, the way he talked always cracked me up. You know, he had a rough voice, especially when he was talking about ballplayers. We got a return address from Al, with the address to the house. The Beach Street? The Beach, yeah. Yeah, he lived there, and Tony Cuccinello was right across the street. So I'd ask him a question about Cuccinello, I'd get him over here, hey, hey. And he'd talk to his sister-in-law, who was like taking care of his house for him, because his wife was gone by then. Hey, see if Tony's home. All of a sudden, Tony comes wobbling in, hey, hey, this is Tony Cuccinello. They'd already been playing golf. They'd be out at Palma Cielo playing golf all morning. Then they come over there, and they're playing gin rummy or dominoes or something in the afternoon. He had a good life, you know. He had it going on. He was a great guy. I mean, me, he didn't know me from Adam. He didn't have to let me come over there and talk to him and let me do it a number of times. I'd come in, and this was before, you know, we had videos on our phones and all this kind of stuff. This was early 90s. First time I met him. I'd come in with a little tape player and sit there, and I'm taking notes and talking to him. Oh, man, you've done some research. Oh, you know about him? You know, and I'd start asking about this guy or that guy. Oh, you know about him? I'd say, I've always read a lot of baseball, you know. Oh, yeah, that's good. That's good. I'm glad you do. I remember the one thing, I've never shown him so impressed, is when he started talking about the 1990 World Series, and he started talking about Lou and LaRusso managing against each other. And he's just like, can you imagine two guys from the same town, you know, one from West Tampa, one from Iboa, playing against each other in the World Series? He goes, my God. He goes, I don't know if you'll ever see that again. He was so impressed by that and so proud. I mean, it just resonated from him, you know, and I'll never forget that. My pleasure. Yes. Can you just tell us how long it took you to write that biography on Al Lopez? Oh, that one? Well, because I was doing it for school, it took me longer than it normally might. You know, but I started in, let's see, I finished the thesis in 92 and I finished the dissertation in 96 and the book was published by 99. But I mean, you know, you get, there was a lot of stuff going on. I was graduating college, getting a job, doing things like that. But you know, if it was, if I was knocking it out, probably usually about three years. But at the time I was, I hadn't read a book before and I was going to college and I was doing things, you know, getting a master's and a doctorate, just took a while. So how did you go from him not really wanting a book to convincing him? No, I didn't have to convince him. I mean, it was just like that by the time I had the dissertation, I'd written a number of papers, parts of it, presented parts of it as papers at different conferences. And I had publishers coming to me about it. And I went to Al and said, look, I know you don't want a book, but there's some people that would like to see it. And this is what we've done. And if you tell me, no, I won't do it. He goes, nah, you know what, you've done a good job of this. Go ahead. I don't mind. Best wishes. You know, that kind of thing. So I said, thanks, you know. So he goes, but let me see it when it's done. I said, yeah, I will. So I came back and I brought it back to him. Hell, Hollywood was bothering me. I really thought there was going to be a movie about Al Opens. During, the last time the White Sox won the World Series, when Ozzy Virgil was, not Ozzy Virgil was following me, Ozzy Guillen was the manager. I get a call from New Line Cinema, turns out the guy that's in charge of like their music department at New Line Cinema is a huge White Sox fan, grew up in Chicago. Loved Al Lopez. Thought there was a movie there. He'd read the book, thought there was a movie there. And then the economy crashed. Well, then Al, Al passed away, what, two days after the White Sox won the World Series. He was in the hospital when the series was going on. And by reports where he was watching the series on TV in the hospital and he passed away right after the series. It was the first time the Sox had been in the series since Al had them in 59. So they thought there was a story. They attached a screenwriter, they attached a producer, and they were shopping it around, around pitching it, okay, around Hollywood. And then the freaking economy craters, it was when W. Bush was president, we had a big recession, and they couldn't sell a baseball movie. And by the time everything cleans up, you know, it's hard, the moment had passed. But I thought for a minute, I thought they might make a movie about Al. I thought it would have been really cool, you know, as long as I get to walk on the red carpet, that would have been fun. My little girl was like, how far can I go? And I was like, no. But there was some interest in it, that's for sure. A final question is, because of the fact that it was segregated so much, do you think it took away from some of the, you know, Caucasian players because they didn't play against some of the, as you mentioned, great Negro players? Yeah, of course. Of course. Some of these guys wouldn't have had jobs if Major League Baseball was integrated at that time or desegregated. Because desegregate is a word, because ballplayers were there in the 1890s, and then segregation after Plessy versus Ferguson, segregation was put in, the gentleman's agreement. But no, it would have taken, some of these guys wouldn't have even been in the big leagues if their black counterparts were put in there. You know, guys like Oscar Charleston, it was Willie Mays before Willie Mays. You know, some of these guys would have played, now forget it, and it would have made the game better, you know, but, you know, a long time ago now.