Tropicana Field
N 27° 46.132 W 082° 39.214
17R E 337058 N 3072694
Home to the Devil Rays.
Waymark Code: WM1K02
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 05/23/2007
Views: 76
Tropicana Field is a domed stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida, which has been the home of Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Devil Rays since 1998.
The ballpark originally began construction in 1986 in the hope that it would lure a Major League Baseball team to the Tampa Bay area. The stadium, built originally as the Florida Suncoast Dome, was first used in an attempt to entice the Chicago White Sox to relocate if a new ballpark were not built to replace the aging Comiskey Park. The governments of Chicago and Illinois eventually agreed to build a New Comiskey Park (now known as U.S. Cellular Field) in 1989, and the White Sox owners ceased discussing the idea of moving the team to the Tampa Bay Area. The stadium was finished in 1990, but still had no tenants. There were rumors of the Seattle Mariners moving in the early part of the 1990s, and the San Francisco Giants were reportedly very close to moving to the area, with Tampa Bay investors even announcing they were in a press conference in 1992. However, the sale was blocked by the then-owner of the Florida Marlins, Blockbuster Video Chairman H. Wayne Huizenga, and the move never happened. A local boycott of Blockbuster Video stores occurred for several years thereafter.
The Suncoast Dome did manage to gain a tenant in 1993 when the Tampa Bay Lightning made the stadium its home for three seasons. In the process, the Suncoast Dome was renamed the Thunderdome. Because of the large capacity of what was basically a park built for baseball, several NHL attendance records were set during their time there. The Tampa Bay Storm of the AFL also played there during the Thunderdome era, and set attendance records for that league as well.
Finally, in 1995, the dome got a baseball team when the MLB expanded to the Tampa Bay area. Changes were made to the stadium and the name, which was changed due to the sale of naming rights to Tropicana Products, thus renaming it Tropicana Field in 1996. A $70 million renovation then took place — to upgrade a stadium that had cost $115 million to complete only eight years earlier. 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.
Although Tropicana was purchased by PepsiCo in 1998, PepsiCo did not elect to make any changes to Tropicana's naming rights.
The walkway to the main entrance of the park features a 900ft.-long (272 m) ceramic tile mosaic, made of 1,849,091 one-inch-square tiles. It is the largest outdoor tile mosaic in Florida, and the fifth-largest in the United States. [1]
The park was initially built with an AstroTurf surface, but it was replaced in 2000 by softer FieldTurf, becoming the first major professional facility to use it. A new version of FieldTurf, FieldTurf Duo, was installed prior to the 2007 season.
The roof is lit orange whenever the Devil Rays win at home.
Tropicana Field underwent a further $25-million facelift prior to the 2006 season. Another $10 million in improvements was added during the season. Further improvements prior to the 2007 offseason, in addition to the new FieldTurf, include additional family features in the right field area and the creation of a new premium club in the first base-side mezzanine sponsored by Whitney Bank, and several new video boards including a new 35ft. x 64ft. (10.5m x 19.4m) main video board that is four times larger than the original video board.
Among the most cited dislikes about the stadium are the four catwalks that hang from the ceiling. The roof was slanted in order to reduce the interior volume and make the stadium cheaper to air-condition. Therefore, the dome is tilted toward the outfield, resulting in the catwalks being lower in the outfield. The upper catwalks are Ring A and Ring B; these catwalks are entirely in play and balls bouncing off them can be caught for outs, or drop for base hits. Ring C and Ring D are out of play; if they are struck between the foul poles (each one has a yellow post marking the relative foul line position), then the ball is ruled a home run. A few hits have been lost in them – for example, Devil Ray Jonny Gomes was called out during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays on May 12, 2006, when a ball he hit landed in Ring B and rolled off to be caught by Toronto shortstop John McDonald. By the time it was caught, Gomes was already headed for home plate. Although Rays manager Joe Maddon tried to argue that it should have been at least a ground rule double since it stayed in Ring B for a while before coming loose, umpires eventually ruled against the Devil Rays and called Gomes out.
Another criticism of the stadium is the drab interior environment; although the stadium is located in a subtropical climate, one cannot tell from inside the dome. The interior has been compared to a large warehouse.
Tropicana Field consistently ranks at the bottom of lists rating the various MLB ballparks. BaseballParks.com ranks it as the worst ballpark opened since 1990 (taking into account its renovation prior to the Devil Rays arriving, since the park opened in 1989). [2]
The dome was built on the former site of a coal gasification plant and in 1987 hazardous chemicals were found in the soil around the construction site. The city spent millions of dollars to remove the chemicals from the area.[
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