Indians and had just led them to the World Series when the city of Tampa built a new minor league and spring training ballpark. It was named Al López Field, and the date of the dedication ceremony (October 6, 1954) was declared "Al López Day" in the city of Tampa. The Chicago White Sox were the ballpark's first spring training tenants, and when Lopez became the new White Sox manager in 1957, he had the unusual honor for several seasons of managing home games in his hometown in a ballpark named after himself. Later in life, López would recall a spring training incident in which an umpire with whom he was arguing threatened to throw him out of a game there. "You can't throw me out of this ballpark", protested Lopez, "This is my ballpark – Al López Field!" The umpire ejected him anyway, causing Lopez to exclaim, "He threw me out of my own ballpark!" López was selected for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee as part of the Class of 1977. He served as the AL's honorary team captain in the 1990 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Al López Field was demolished in to make room for a potential major league facility that was never built. López lived a few miles from the ballpark that bore his name. In a 1992 interview, he said that the razing of the stadium "wasn't very disappointing. I saw a diagram of the new stadium, and I didn't feel bad because I thought they were going to build a bigger one and a better one. After that, something happened, and they never built the ballpark. Then it was a disappointment." Soon thereafter, the city of Tampa changed the name of Horizon Park, a large city park near the site of the razed stadium, to Al López Park, and installed a large statue of López in his catching gear. The statue was dedicated on October 3, 1992, a date which was officially proclaimed as a second "Al López Day" in the city. Soon thereafter, his high school, Jesuit High School, which is located across the street from Al López Park, named its new athletic center in Lopez's honor. When the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays began play in in nearby St. Petersburg, Lopez threw one of several ceremonial first pitches along with fellow Hall of Famers Ted Williams,