ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It’s no secret Tropicana Field is in a state of steep disrepair. But a long, slow walk Saturday morning around the perimeter of the 35-year-old stadium–now without a roof–revealed just how extensive those problems are.
Even the sign high above the ground identifying the ballpark and its location is missing letters, “St. ——burg, Florida. Some of the framing is also gone, as well as the green shell over the letter “a” in Tropicana. Those 100-mph-plus winds from Hurricane Milton were devastating.
That isn’t the half of it, Rays manager Kevin Cash said on the other side of the bay Saturday where his club lost 2-1 to Colorado Rockies at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, their interim home for at least this season.
Cash said he’s been inside the Trop multiple times since the storm and has noticed the deterioration. There’s a feeling of nothingness.
“At first, it looked odd without the roof on it,” Cash said during a pregame media session. “Over time it’s kind of gotten worse. They’ve done a lot of work inside. The clubhouse initially was OK. But with the weather and successive storms, more water has crept in there.”
The trademark sign is a symbol of the chaos and billions of dollars of damage Hurricane Milton wrought this past October in Pinellas County, home of the Trop.
Photo by Barry M. Bloom
Walking to the brink of an open loading dock, I was startled to see two things: the blue sky and sunlight flooding in what was left of the steel-skeletal beams that once held the Teflon roof, and no tarp across the blue seats of the upper deck. That used to be a mainstay to shrink capacity from the 45,369 when the Rays started playing there in 1998 to last season’s 25,025.
Even with that shrinkage, the Rays last season averaged 16,515 per game and a total of 1.33 million, third worst for Major League Baseball teams in both categories.
Two elderly female security guards dressed in bright yellow jackets barred any further access.
“Ask the Rays,” one said.
Cash is our eyes and ears.
“A lot of people were working very hard over there trying to fix it,” he said. “But now they’re just trying to maintain enough and see where we go.”
Much has been made about how the Rays are going to adjust to playing a season outdoors in the elements at Steinbrenner Field, but not enough focus has been placed on the emotional trauma of having to vacate your home of so many years to play and live elsewhere.
It’s a feeling shared by so many folks who lost their houses here in last year’s dual hurricanes and ensuing floods, not to mention the January Los Angeles fires and the ones recently plaguing the Carolinas. Tornados have also ravaged a lot of the South and Midwest.
The heart-wrenching question is whether to rebuild or move on. The St. Pete city council is facing that decision about the Trop right now and Thursday will have a pivotal vote on whether to fund the repairs. If they vote yes, the Rays will remain in a reconstituted Trop for at least three more years. If they vote no, the team can move on with approval of at least 75 percent of the other owners.
No question losing a professional sports franchise can have a devastating impact on a community. Just ask the baseball fans of Oakland and the hockey fans of Phoenix, who both lost their teams last year.
Right now, the pain of displacement for the Rays may be temporary, but it’s no less acute.
“It’s our home,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander said in interview Saturday. “It’s a home we learned to love over the years. We’ve had a lot of special memories in that building. It’s a place that’s meant a lot to everybody. It’s just unfortunate.”
Neander, 41, has been with the Rays in some front office capacity since 2007 and has been through the eras of managers Joe Maddon and Cash, who took over for Maddon when he left for the Chicago Cubs in 2015. Neander was promoted to his current position in 2021.
Neander has seen it all from the rain-postponed, five-game World Series loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 to the bubble 2020 World Series that because of COVID was played in Arlington’s Globe Life Field, a six-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Neither Neander nor Cash wants to yet face the fact the Rays may have already played their final game at the Trop, let alone St. Pete.
“There’s definitely sentiment about this for me and the players,” Cash said. “We enjoyed playing there. We’re certainly sensitive to the circumstances over there.”
Back at the Trop, the name Musial seems to have eroded off a plaque about the history of baseball in St. Pete that it says dates back to 1914. The team store is dark and bolted as are rusted chain fences, guardrails and gates surrounding the stadium to keep any stragglers out.
The only people in the vicinity Saturday morning were joggers, bicyclists and a few onlookers. There was no apparent restoration or construction work.
While 10,046 die-hard fans sold out the game in Tampa for the second consecutive day, the tarp was placed on the field afterward in anticipation of heavy Sunday rain and a possible first postponement of a Rays home game in club history.
Just 26 miles away at the Trop, a sign above a walkway intended for folks exiting toward the parking lot read, “THANK YOU RAYS FANS.”
That message now is falling on deaf ears.
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