Al Lopez Caught Walter Johnson in Tampa When He Was 16

In 1925 a 16-year-old catcher from Ybor City got to catch Walter Johnson in an exhibition game in Tampa. The kid was Al Lopez. He went on to catch 1,918 major league games, a record that stood for about forty years until Bob Boone passed it in 1987.

Ybor City

Lopez was born in Ybor City on August 20, 1908, to Spanish immigrant parents, and grew up around the cigar factories and the sandlots.

The Manager

From 1949 through 1964 the New York Yankees won every American League pennant but two, and Lopez managed both of the teams that beat them: the 1954 Cleveland Indians, who won 111 games, and the 1959 Chicago White Sox. He went into the Hall of Fame in 1977.

What to Know

Tampa named a ballpark for him, Al Lopez Field, since torn down. Al Lopez Park, with his statue, is still there. He died in 2005 at 97.