It was right at 2am when I pulled into the parking lot of the Flying Tigers complex in Lakeland, Florida. I was trying hard to finish my loop of the 20 ball parks in Florida before I headed back to Virginia, and when I put my rental car in park, I noticed someone approaching me in a golf cart.
My first thought was to explain that I just wanted to look around and take some pictures and then get on my way. But before I could get started, Rafael Anglada beat me to the punch. See, when you want to protect the shield, that is the sport of baseball, you know immediately when you cross paths with a fellow Gste Keeper.
In the blink of an eye, I went from thinking about getting harassed by an underpaid third shift security guard to realizing the fountain of baseball knowledge was available, and he was in the mood to chat !
We quickly landed on the subject of Greg Maddux, and it turned out that his Son played on the same little league field where Dave Maddux taught his youngin how to pitch.
Maddux was in the Air Force when Greg was born in 1966. He was stationed at a base outside of Madrid. Spain, and that is where Greg first learned to play baseball.
The Sun had risen by the time we finished up our chat, and I learned more about the Tigers and the Flying Tigers than I would have thought possible. While a great deal of the relationships in this book are from decades ago, this one is fresh and continues to grow !
The MLB Tigers, the Class A Flying Tigers, and a rookie league club all spend part of their year at the half stadium / half college campus, and Rafael interacts with them all.
Meeting up with Rafael only happened because the hotel I had just stopped at prior to the park was booked solid. Your Biblical take on this one is that there wS No Room at the Inn, and it led me to one of the more interesting characters that I’ve ever met at 2am.
