Stadium For Rent: 5. The Chicken

STADIUM FOR RENT:
Tampa Bay's Quest for Major League Baseball
By BOB ANDELMAN

5. The Chicken

Cedric Tallis, George Steinbrenner's right-hand man for eight years, four pennants and two world championships, loved to show off his scrapbook.

"Isn't that a pretty picture?" he asked. The answer was yes, but Tallis saw more in it than a fan ever would. A World Series ring on his left hand and a blue Yankee insignia on a chain around his neck, he gazed at the House That Ruth Built and saw Thurman Munson and Dave Winfield, Catfish Hunter and Lou Piniella, Yogi Berra and Billy Martin. Friends. Family.

Other pictures included Yankee Old-Timer games and an out-take from a Yankee team photo session in the late '70s in which all the players mugged for the camera.

Still more faces rushed by: Lou Saban, Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto and Walter Alston. There was one of Tallis playing golf with one-time Tampa Bay Buccaneers Coach Ray Perkins and former New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne.

For 40-plus years, Fellsmere, Florida, native Cedric Tallis hung around baseball diamonds. As a young man he played the game in college, the Army and in semi-pro leagues. "I couldn't hit the curveball as well as I would have liked," he said, "so I started pitching. That, to me, was more interesting: the competition with the hitter, trying to fool the hitter, deceive him."

Realizing he would not make the Bigs as a player, Tallis applied his understanding of the game's intricacies to management. He handled clubs all over, from Thomasville, Ga., in Class D to Flint, Michigan, in Class A and Vancouver, B.C., in the Pacific Coast League. As general manager of a minor league team in Montgomery, Alabama, he claimed to have been the first to integrate a franchise in that state, an act which acquainted him with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Tallis cracked the major leagues in 1960 when he became general manager of the expansion Los Angeles Angels. Eight years later, he was hired by a second infant franchise, the Kansas City Royals. After doing wonders in K.C. for Royals owner Ewing Kaufman, Tallis was hired away in 1975 by Steinbrenner to rebuild both Yankee Stadium and the fallen Yankees themselves; he restored the luster to America's Team.

With such impeccable credentials and a lifetime of contacts among baseball's establishment, Tallis was a natural to lead the Tampa Bay Baseball Group's efforts to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to Tampa.

He joined the team November 1, 1983, and stayed on for the seven-year rollercoaster ride.

As Tallis remembered it, "Tom McEwen met me at a general managers' meeting in Saddlebrook [a resort north of Tampa] in '82. He came over and asked if I'd be interested in working part-time as a consultant for the TBBG. By '83 they needed someone full time. I had had my fill of New York. I saw the prospect of Florida. I thought it represented a challenge."

"Cedric was a jewel," McEwen says. "I don't know anybody who didn't like Cedric Tallis. He knew more people in baseball than anyone in either the Tampa or St. Petersburg group. Everybody liked him; nobody disliked him. Tallis was absolutely perfect for the job. Everybody loved old Cedric."

Morsani hired Tallis as a part-time consultant at first, not yet knowing where the baseball group was headed. "Then the baseball group felt we needed a full-time person because we were all busy with our businesses and we couldn't contact people," Morsani says. "So I went to George Steinbrenner and said we'd like to hire Cedric fulltime if he didn't object."

He didn't.

"Cedric was hired because of who he knew in baseball, to take advantage of his friendships," Morsani says. "He contacted the owners he knew. He contacted the press in New York and all over the United States. When we went to meetings he introduced us to various owners and we sat with them and became quite well acquainted with the majority of the owners. He also gave speeches all over the bay area. Everybody in the press contacted him. Plus, he knew ticket prices, concessions, management structure, organizational charts, the front office, the back office and field operations. He was the person who knew what to do to make a baseball team run. He fulfilled his mission very well."

Tallis was probably the most qualified man in the U.S. on starting teams and building stadiums.

"I knew a lot of people," Tallis said. "Put it this way -- in baseball, your reputation is important, your word being good, all that sort of stuff. We had to keep maintaining a relationship with all the owners. And two or three league presidents. And we had to go through Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti and Fay Vincent. Kuhn was a great commissioner. People resented Bowie because he was so goddamn big. But he was a baseball fan."

With Tallis leading the way, the TBBG became a regular attraction at every gathering of Major League Baseball executives. Winter meetings, All-Star games, the World Series -- wherever baseball (or the Pinellas Sports Authority) was, Tallis made sure Morsani made the scene, too.

"We had a very, very receptive audience," Tallis said. "We got encouragement from [National League president] Chub Feeney and [American League president] Lee MacPhail. The tough sell was with the new owners. Baseball is a very strange, parochial enterprise. The day of the Horace Stonehams and Calvin Griffiths were gone. Those were baseball people. Now you have people successful in other fields of endeavor owning ball clubs."

Tallis' favorite part of the job lay ahead: he would be the one to map out the way Frank Morsani & Co. would build a stadium and run a ballclub when they finally bought one. He had organizational charts, scouting forms, expense reports that would serve as guidelines for the baseball group.

Gabe Paul, a management veteran of 58 years in professional baseball (with the Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians), brought Cedric Tallis to the Yankees. A lifelong pal of Tallis, Paul says Tallis was probably the best in baseball when it came to details and trivia. "In New York, when we remodeled Yankee Stadium, we had an architect working for us who was a pessimist. He thought we would not be able to open on time. I told George [Steinbrenner], 'I know a fellow who will get us open on time.'

"He walked in, got all the different forces together -- the city, the contractors -- and we opened on schedule. He did a helluva job," Paul says.

Tallis didn't hold with the belief of some in baseball that there wasn't enough talent around to stock new clubs, or that the overall talent pool would be diminished by expansion. "If you provide the opportunity," he said, "talent will occupy that space. I don't care whether you're talking about baseball or you're establishing a new newspaper. You give people a chance and they'll come out of the blue. The same applies to players. It's a defeatist attitude that there isn't enough talent.

"Many years ago the population of the United States was just over 100-million people. We've got what, 250-million now? And you've got the Caribbean area, Canada; people are playing ball in Australia, Belgium, Italy, Korea and Japan.

"Look at 1986. There were guys that you never heard of -- nor did I -- [Pete] Incaviglia, [Wally] Joyner, [Jose] Canseco -- these fellows were stars. And they came out of nowhere."

Tallis said that whether his former boss, George Steinbrenner, was out front for Tampa Bay or not, Steinbrenner always pushed baseball on Tampa Bay's behalf.

"George has been a promoter of Tampa Bay for years," Tallis said. "I think he had an active interest. He was there if anyone wanted to talk about it. Personally, he wished there was an American League franchise here so he could see the Yankees more often. He wouldn't have released me to [the TBBG] unless he felt the chances of success were good. "

One of the curious things about Tallis was that although he was clearly hired because of his friends in baseball, he admitted to great hesitation in using those relationships. He said he never directly pushed Steinbrenner to come to Tampa Bay's assistance.

"I thought it would be unfair," Tallis said. "I knew he would be for us if it came to brass tacks. He was already in favor of Tampa Bay."

Philadelphia Phillies president Bill Giles has his own memory of Tallis.

"I knew Cedric quite well," he says. "Good man. He and Gabe Paul were the two who pushed me a lot, tried to convince me even before I was on the [expansion] committee that baseball would be great down here. Cedric tried to brainwash me a couple of times, but he did it in a low-key way. He asked a lot of questions -- should we be doing this? Should we be doing that? I kept saying no, everything's cool."
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As the Tampa Bay Baseball Group blossomed, it chose to pursue baseball using the "chicken theory": Get a team, then build a stadium. This was the difference between Tampa and St. Petersburg. And Tampa swore to go forward only with private dollars.

The TBBG paid $100,000 to tear down Al Lopez Stadium, former home of the Class A Tampa Tarpons. It intended to use private money to build the "Tampa Coliseum," a baseball-only stadium beside Tampa Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The formation of the Tampa Bay Baseball Group stemmed largely from a desire to do the right thing by the Tampa community. "I think their intentions were right," second-generation Blue Book publisher Larry Halstead says. But he believes the TBBG was led down the garden path by architect Ray Bennett, who convinced them that baseball would rather be in Tampa than St. Petersburg.

"I never heard anyone in baseball express a preference," Larry Halstead says. "They always looked at this as the Tampa Bay area. One area. I never heard anyone say one side was better than another."
* * *

Real estate developer William Lawrence "Bill" Mack, president of the Mack Co. of Rochelle Park, New Jersey, took over the company his father Bert began in 1963. The Macks made their millions by building, leasing and managing office and warehouse space across the country. Bill, who studied finance and real estate at the Wharton School of Business, and his brother, Earle, teamed up with St. Petersburg corporate raider Paul Bilzerian in a $722-million takeover attempt of Hammermill Paper Co. Although the partnership failed, the Macks sold their stake and made a $60-million profit.

The Mack family's Florida operations include the successful 19-story One Mack Center in downtown Tampa, opened in 1981, and the 28-story Two Mack Center, which followed it in 1990. The latter building remained empty until Hillsborough County purchased it for offices in 1992.

Tampa attorney James Cusack was Mack's development partner in the Mack Center projects. Cusack, attorney and friend of Frank Morsani, brought the two together in 1979. Three years later, Mack emerged as the money man in the Tampa Bay Baseball Group. Tallis made the contacts, Morsani wrote the deals and when the time was right, Mack would step to the plate and swing his mighty checkbook.

"I always said he had on long pants and I had on short pants," Morsani recalls. "He had the substantial resources to make it happen and I was doing the legwork and all those kinds of things. I came up with [good-faith] money but whenever we would finally do a deal there would have to be substantial amounts of cash and he would have to come up with the bulk of the cash."

Mack developed contacts in baseball through his involvement in New York's sports community, from horse racing to the renovation of Yankee Stadium, according to Morsani. The developer lived near New York Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon and Wilpon's partner Nelson Doubleday. He knew Chicago White Sox co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and most of the baseball commissioners over the years.

Of Mack and Morsani, George Steinbrenner told the St. Petersburg Times, "They have every qualification to be excellent owners."
* * *

Jack Lake lost sight of regional partnership issues once the rival Tampa Bay Baseball Group formed. He insisted baseball was coming to St. Petersburg or nowhere.

Lake often said if St. Petersburg didn't get a team, he was pushing for Orlando to get it. And he didn't want Tampa -- or Tampa Bay -- to be mentioned in any part of the team's name. In the National League East, Lake expected to look at the daily standings and see the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Expos, Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Petersburg Paperboys.

"It was a big battle between the Tribune's Tom McEwen and the Times' Hubert Mizell," Tampa Bay area sportscaster Tedd Webb says. "I'd have them both on my show and Tom would say 'Tampa' and Hubert would say, 'Tampa Bay, Tom, Tampa Bay.'

"Tom was just as tough as Jack Lake. He felt, 'If we don't get it, I hope you don't get it.' "
* * *

The Tampa Bay Baseball Group's appearance on the scene triggered animosity and suspicion on both sides of the bay.

The TBBG and others opposed to building a stadium in downtown St. Petersburg had McEwen's ear. McEwen deliberately kept the waters muddy in hopes of landing a team and facility for Tampa. He created and repeated the same refrain: Baseball wants to be in Tampa. Downtown St. Petersburg is too far out of the way. The Tampa Bay Baseball Group will build with private dollars only when a team comes.

"I don't put it past Tom to plant a story here or there about how bad baseball would be in downtown St. Petersburg," retired Tribune managing editor Paul Hogan says. "Or talking to Steinbrenner, telling him to tell the other baseball owners about how bad it would be and how they should tell St. Petersburg not to build a stadium.

"I wouldn't put it past him," Hogan says, "but I don't know that he did it.

"Editorializing [in a sports column], no, it's not wrong. That's what they're there to do. In Tom's role as a columnist, he always maintained, 'If I can take a role, why can't I actively do what's required to support that position?' "

Hogan maintains that what the Tribune did in its sports columns, the Times did in its daily news coverage. "The St. Petersburg Times ' reporting got to be the most slanted I ever saw," he says. "Frank [Morsani] got so mad at them.

"One paper was trying to get residents to pay for a baseball field with no team. The other paper was supporting a private group of businessmen who wanted to build a private park with private funds.

"If our hands were dirty, I'm sorry," Hogan says. "But I know some hands that were dirtier."

Retired St. Petersburg Times editor Gene Patterson says Hogan must be thinking of some newspaper other than his Times.

"I think they were nasty," Patterson says. "I thought we were statesmanlike. I'm sure they're ashamed of some of what they wrote, the cartoons they drew. We deliberately attempted not to get down to that level. It was becoming apparent to me and our editorial board that we had to pull this area together. The silly bickering was pulling the area apart."

PSA executive director Bill Bunker says that a one-time secretary of his was a mole for the TBBG. "You can't imagine the passions that were set loose by this damn thing. Earle Halstead, who had been vice-chairman of the PSA, who introduced me to this job, suborned my secretary to be a spy for him and Ray Bennett.

"[Halstead] also said, 'I know seven owners who would never put a team in St. Petersburg,' " Bunker says. "I don't know if Earle thought he was lying, but he would fit the facts to what he was saying."

PSA member Cecil Englebert says, "If they had a chance to build a stadium and get a team on their side, I don't think anything would have stopped them. We just did our thing and they did theirs. We kept quiet. My job was to cheerlead our group and not talk about the other group. We had a mission to do -- we weren't going to have Tampa dictate what we would do."

Bennett ran into problems, apparently plagiarizing his own Suncoast Sportsplex plans for the TBBG's Tampa Coliseum. When the architect unveiled his plans for the Tampa Coliseum, they looked remarkably similar to the proposed Suncoast Sportsplex. Remarkably similar.

Another maneuver by the TBBG applied Tampa political clout in Florida's state capital to get a free environmental impact study for the proposed Tampa Coliseum tacked onto an environmental bill in the state legislature. It saved the TBBG thousands of dollars.

"Every time Tampa needed something, there was a sugardaddy in Washington or Tallahassee," Cecil Englebert says. "And they bragged about it! I'm not blaming them -- it's just that our side never had a sugardaddy anywhere, anytime. There was always someone over there who could get things done while we sat here idle. I'm not criticizing them, I'm criticizing us." The PSA spent six months and thousands of dollars slogging through its impact study for the Gas Plant site.

Bunker and Tallis were old friends from other times and other places. But the baseball effort was war. Dirty tricks ruled. Anything controversial or negative published in the newspapers about Pinellas was clipped by the TBBG and sent to baseball owners.

The St. Petersburg Times did a story in the mid-1980s critical of tax breaks received by George Steinbrenner's Tampa-based company, American Ship Building. Steinbrenner -- in the midst of an ongoing feud with the newspaper -- didn't care for the story at all.

It was rumored that he faxed the story to the other 25 owners in baseball with a handwritten, pointed note: "Is this the kind of city you want to put a team in?" (Steinbrenner declined to be interviewed.)

Meanwhile baseball blustered through the years on the subject of expansion. Its message to the Pinellas Sports Authority and the Tampa Bay Baseball Group was this: Get together or get lost.

Who was the messenger?

"Every drunk at the bar during the winter meetings," Bunker says. "Every scout, every general manager. What we didn't know was that baseball wasn't going to expand. They didn't have a plan. They'd form committees and go away."

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