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West Palm Beach Tropics

Field	Value
name	West Palm Beach Tropics
firstseason	1989
lastseason	1990
city	West Palm Beach, Florida
logo	West Palm Beach Tropics.png
past class level	Independent Winter League
league	Senior Professional Baseball Association
division	Southern Division
pastnames	{{plainlist
pastparks	Municipal Stadium
divisionchamps	1 (1989)

Florida Tropics (1990)
West Palm Beach Tropics (1989)

The West Palm Beach Tropics were one of the eight original franchises that began play in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989. The club hired Dick Williams as manager and fielded a lineup that included slugger Dave Kingman and Rollie Fingers. The Tropics went 52-20 in the regular season and ran away with the Southern Division title. Ron Washington led the club's offense, hitting .359 with a league-high 73 RBI. Mickey Rivers hit .366 and Kingman added 8 homers. The pitching staff was led by Juan Eichelberger, who went 11-5 with a 2.90 earned run average (ERA). Tim Stoddard also won 10 games for the club.

Local Valentino Falcone (a former minor leaguer) ruptured a hamstring stealing second base (one game before opening day) depriving him of an eventual roster spot.

Despite their regular season dominance, the Tropics lost 12-4 to the St. Petersburg Pelicans in the SPBA's initial championship game.

The West Palm Beach Tropics returned for a second season, as a traveling team known as the Florida Tropics, however the team ceased operation when the league folded in December 1990.

Attendance

The Tropics also had the league's best attendance record. A crowd of 3,404 showed up for opening night, an 8-1 victory over the St. Lucie Legends, and the average draw over 35 home dates settled at a respectable 1,600.

Unfortunately, the estimated break-even point for every franchise was 2,000 per game. Five of the league's eight teams did not get even half that figure.

The initial WPB team owners, future Florida Marlins and Boston Red Sox owner John Henry and Boca Raton lawyer Don Sider, sold the Tropics after the first season, convinced the league would fail in its attempt to expand to California and Arizona. New York theatrical producer Mitch Maxwell purchased the club but never completed financial requirements with the league and tried to sell the team back to Henry.{{cite news

Coaches and staff

Manager and coaches

Manager: Dick Williams
Coaches: Bob Fralick, Ed Rakow, Larry Brown

Front Office

Ken Shepard, Vice President of Operations / Manager (died 2014)
Ken Burlew, Asst. Dir. of Operations
Michelle Jaminet, Vice President of Marketing
Dale Patten, Ticket Manager
Frank Calieri, Marketing Assistant

Notable players

Benny Ayala
Pete Broberg
Ray Burris
Doug Capilla
Mike Easler
Juan Eichelberger
Rollie Fingers
Toby Harrah
Al Hrabosky
Randy Johnson
Ron Johnson
Odell Jones
Dave Kingman
Lee Lacy
Gary Lance
Tito Landrum
Renie Martin
Will McEnaney
Paul Mirabella
Sid Monge
Dan Norman
Lowell Palmer
Luis Pujols
Ed Rakow
Mickey Rivers
Rodney Scott
Tim Stoddard
Tom Underwood
Mark Wagner
Ron Washington
Jerry White :

References

Miller, Glenn. (November 23, 1990). "Fresh line of defense impresses Dobson". News-Press.
[http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Team.cfm/tid/596/col/1/yea/0/West-Palm-Beach-Tropics?sTeam=&sCardNum=&sNote=&sSetName=&sBrand= 1989–1990 West Palm Beach/Florida Tropics]. ''The Trading Card Database''. Retrieved on March 3, 2016.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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