Is there a better place for Plant City Little League to celebrate its diamond anniversary than the baseball diamond?
That’s the plan for Saturday, Feb. 22, the league’s 60th birthday. There will be appearances by Plant City natives who played in the inaugural 1954 season and Strawberry Queen Jessi Rae Varnum, who will throw the first pitch with members of the Florida Strawberry Festival Court. And, most importantly, there will be baseball action.
But, one of the coolest celebrations of the league’s anniversary won’t be available outside.
For that, you’ll have to go online.
A LOOK BACK
T.J. Messick, who runs Plant City Little League’s website, has been working on its “PCLL History” page since he created the entire site in 2007. The longtime webmaster, who also played for First Florida’s PCLL team in the early 1990s, got the idea during the All-Star events.
“I was in the boardroom, working with league officials, and they were telling all of these old stories about the league in the 70s and 80s,” Messick says. “So, I just started asking them questions about everything.”
After he ran out of questions, Messick realized there was a lot of history tucked away in the boardroom that other people, perhaps those too young to remember much about the league’s past, would want to see. So, he gathered everything he could from the boardroom and took an inventory.
“We have a bunch of old plaques, awards, photos, and other stuff and, over a few weeks, I got it all inventoried,” Messick says. “I went by year, age division, and whether it was baseball or softball, for All-Stars and beyond.”
Once everything was organized to his liking, Messick took scans and photos of everything he found and uploaded them to the site. Today, there are three different pages. One chronicles the history of the league and has a plethora of old photos, the second “trophy case” has results from every year in baseball, and the final “trophy case” covers the league’s softball accomplishments.
Messick had built a nice-sized collection of history, but he then decided to start searching again. Having already covered everything that the league itself had, he decided to crowd-source his search.
“As the years went by, I started telling people about it, and people who played started donating pictures and newspaper clips,” Messick says. “The more people I talk to, the more things I get.”
The main photo gallery is now up to 72 photos, consisting of team composites, newspaper clippings, action shots, candid photos, backyard portraits, a player certificate or two and even some trading cards. Messick himself appears in a composite for the 1990 First Florida Bank team, which rode a 19-game win streak to a division title. A secondary gallery contains scans from a program from the 1964 Florida District 4 All-Star Tournament.
BACK IN THE DAY
Former Major Leaguer Rip Sewell led the charge to create a Little League organization in the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, and the charter was granted in 1954 — only the second charter in the state at the time. The first board staff included Sewell and some other prominent Plant City names, including Otis Andrews, Paul Buchman and Irma Moody.
The league began with four teams — the Kilgore Giants, the Breyer Cubs, the Horsey Chiefs and the Southland Tigers — and grew to eight in 1956 by adding the Civitan, Kiwanis, Optimist (then spelled “Optomist”) and Rotary teams. As the years went on, the league grew considerably.
“Back in the day, PCLL was a huge league,” Messick says. “As it grew, they had to create a double charter: an American League and a National League. It was divided by which side of the railroad tracks you lived on.”
That meant seven or eight teams per league and created an All-Star showdown where the winning team advanced to play for a state title — without being able to add players from the losing side.
“When you talk to these older guys, they’ll say, ‘If we had a single charter, we would have won more state titles,’” Messick says.
HEYDAY
The league was granted its single charter in 2010. Since then, baseball has won one state title, in the 2012 season. It produced other immediate results for the boys’ game, as evidenced by a two-season run from 2011-2012 that brought home the most hardware in the league’s history.
“In 2011, we took a group of 10-year-olds and won the Southeast Region,” Messick says. “I coached my son’s 10-and-11 team in 2011 and 2012, and we won the District 4 title, the Section 4 title, a state title and back-to-back Southeast Region titles. Those were our biggest years.”
Despite the fairly new charter allowing for more competitive playoff teams, Messick says things aren’t quite the same as they used to be.
“Back then, it seemed like every kid in town played Little League,” he says. “Now we’re struggling to find players and coaches, due to the rise of travel ball, but we still have a strong program.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
IF YOU GO
OPENING DAY
WHEN: 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 22. Games will be played until 3 p.m.
WHERE: Mike Sansone Community Park, 1702 N. Park Road, Field 3
INFORMATION: Free hot dogs and drinks will be available for those who attend.
WEBSITE: eteamz.com/plantcityll
ADD TO THE COLLECTION
Do you, or does someone you know, have old photos, certificates or awards collected from time spent in Plant City Little League? If so, T.J. Messick would like to hear from you. Your mementos, which would be featured in the league’s “PCLL History” section, can be sent directly to Messick via email, TJMessick3@gmail.com.