Stadium Preview: Part VIII

What originally fueled the B4B idea was to visit each major league baseball stadium across the country. Now that our dreams will become reality beginning in 2012, we will want to share our greatest experiences with followers of our journey. We’ll report on fan devotion, best concessions, most memorable park moment in history and video blogging each 7th inning stretch the B4B crew will sing along to all season. We really want our readers to experience each stadium along with us.

Over the next few months, the B4B blog will be providing previews of each major league stadium. We will give some historical background, along with plenty of pictures. We would love to get fans perspective on each park as well, so please provide feedback on your favorite stadium on facebook and twitter. Our posts will take us from the oldest stadium all the way to the brand new Marlins Stadium. We hope you enjoy.

Tropicana Field

Tropicana Field opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome, and it is the eighth oldest stadium in baseball. Baseball wasn’t played in the stadium right away; the Tampa Bay Rays began play in 1998 when they were known as the Devil Rays.

Such has been the story with other stadiums we’ve previously researched, the city of St. Petersburg was envious of their neighbor across the bay for having the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and so they decided to build their own stadium in hopes of enticing a major league baseball team. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, several teams, including the White Sox, Mariners, and Giants, were rumored to have interest in moving to St. Petersburg. Personally, I suspect those teams were just using the new stadium in St. Petersburg as a bargaining chip to have their own new stadiums built. That happens a lot.

The stadium was finished in 1990, but had trouble finding tenants for the first few years. So they did some re-branding and changed the name of the stadium to the Thunderdome(!!!!!!), and NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning played there for 3 years until their arena was finished in downtown Tampa. Luckily, the stadium’s marquee event, the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, began play in 2008 with a thrilling win by the South Florida Bulls over the Memphis Tigers. Other tenants include:

Tampa Bay Rays (MLB) (1998–present)
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl (NCAA) (2008–present)
Tampa Bay Storm (AFL) (1991–1996)
Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL) (1993–1996)
ArenaBowl IX (AFL) (1995)
NCAA Men’s Final Four (1999)
Florida Tuskers (UFL) (2009)

When St. Petersburg won the right to the expansion Devil Rays, $70 million was spent to renovate a stadium that had cost $130 million to complete 8 years prior. The first regular season baseball game took place at the park on March 31, 1998, when the Devil Rays faced the Detroit Tigers, losing 11–6. The most notable event from that game was Fred McGriff having the first hit-by-pitch in stadium history*.

 

*The Crime Dog likes to mark his turf in new stadiums so history remembers him not only for being “Major League Super Star Fred McGriff” in Tom Emanski’s baseball training videos, but for being the first to accomplish something in a new stadium. But seriously, those commercials are 20 years old, and I still see them on ESPN every once in a while.

Tropicana Field has a unique slanted roof. Apparently this reduces cooling costs, and makes the stadium better suited to withstand hurricanes. Tropicana Field is the only permanent domed stadium in baseball, and a major criticism about the stadium is the catwalks above the playing surface. The catwalks are circular from inner to outer that have letters assigned to them A-D. There are rules for when batted balls hit the catwalks, but they are too confusing and involved. I don’t know how the players keep track of them.

The most notable catwalk occurrences have happened recently, when the Rays started to get good. Evan Longoria hit one of the catwalks for a homerun in the 2008 ALDS. The catwalks may or may not have been a big deal from the years 1998-2007, when they won an average of 64 games a season, but no one knows because most people didn’t know Tampa Bay had a baseball team.

People are paying attention to the Rays now. They’ve had three postseason appearances in four years. We are very excited to see them play. Stay up to date with everything B4B on facebook and twitter. Keep biking!