New Stadium Please

The year was 1990. In an attempt to bring an MLB team to the St. Petersburg area, Tropicana Field was built right by downtown St. Petersburg. In 1993 two expansions teams where given to Miami and Denver. After the expansion, rumors started to fly around about the Giants or Mariners moving. After these rumors died St. Petersburg had to wait 2 more years until 1995 when they when another expansion was given to them. This team was to be named the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
 Recent reports say that a site around the Fair Grounds of Hillsborough County is being prepared in case the Rays ownership decides on moving the team to Tampa.

As of now we can only hope for relocation or be content with seeing an empty Trop and our top players signing with other teams because the team cannot afford them.

Now in 2011 the renamed Rays are facing financial issues trying to compete with $150M+ payroll teams in its own division, not being able to pay their good players, and having the 2nd worst attendance in the majors.

What went wrong? Many would blame the fans for not going to the games, but as a bay area resident that may not be the case.

The main issue is the location of the Trop itself. It is located in down town St. Pete. The city itself is a beach community that has around 200,000 residents and many tourists wanting to enjoy the weather and beaches. Not an Ideal Place for a baseball stadium who has to compete with the neighboring beaches.

The location also hurts neighboring residents of the city of Tampa who have to face not only downtown traffic to get to a game, but they also have to cross the 3 mile long Gandy Bridge to get to St. Petersburg, which with traffic means a 2 hour ride to see a Rays game. This means that a person getting off of work at 5pm has little chance to catch a game at 7pm on weekdays.

To add to the negative perception of The Trop there have been games decided due to a ball hitting one of the four cat walks along the roof of the stadium.

This issue seemed to be over with back in 2007 when designs for a water front stadium were made public. Unfortunately, enough support for the project wasn't gathered and the project was terminated in 2008.

To further hurt the rays chances of a new stadium, the organization are in contract with The Trop until 2027.

Edits by: Michael Natelli (Editor of The Way of the Ray)