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 ERA. Tim Stoddard also won 10 games for the club. Local Valentino Falcone (former minor leaguer)ruptured hamstring stealing second base( one game before opening day) depriving him a spot on roster. Despite their regular season dominance, the Tropics lost 12-4 to the St. Petersburg Pelicans in the league's championship game. The West Palm Beach Tropics returned for a second season but ceased operation when the league folded in December 1990.
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Famous quotes containing the words west, palm, beach and/or tropics:
“The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“When John Henry was a little fellow,
You could hold him in the palm of your hand,
He said to his pa, “When I grow up
I’m gonna be a steel-driving man.
Gonna be a steel-driving man.””
—Unknown. John Henry (l. 1–5)
“A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn . . .
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet. . . .
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones’ should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
“The white man in the tropics degenerates every day.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)