Rays to transform minor league ballpark for major duty in (almost) no time, and Red Sox will be one of first visitors
A metamorphosis that even Statcast can't measure.
'Building the plane while you fly it,' said Bill Walsh, the Rays' chief business officer. 'At times really, really exciting and at times obviously just incredibly frantic and stressful.'
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Tampa Bay is one of two big league teams whose home games will be in minor league stadiums this year. The Athletics moved to Sutter Park in West Sacramento, Calif., for at least three seasons while a planned structure is built in Las Vegas.
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The Red Sox are scheduled for a three-game series April 14-16 at the 'home' of the Rays.
After playing indoors at the Trop in St. Petersburg since the franchise took the field in 1998, the Rays needed a rental after
Hurricane Milton tore off the roof panels on Oct 9.
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Concluding the ballpark couldn't be repaired quickly, Tampa Bay found an office site near the Trop two weeks later and announced a deal on Nov. 14 to play 2025 home games at Steinbrenner Field,
These temporary digs will feel like a player palace. A two-year renovation designed by Gensler and executed by Turner Construction Co. transformed the home clubhouse from motel quality to a Four Seasons.
Home clubhouse more lavish than most
Player and staff space doubled to 50,000 square feet. There is a two-story weight room with floor-to-ceiling windows and garage door, indoor and outdoor stretching areas, a Ping-Pong table, a barbershop, eight beds in a trainers area, massage rooms, and a SwimEx along with hot and cold tubs with TVs at water level, a sauna red-light therapy and four batting cages. Each player locker has a safe along with USB and USB-C ports. There is a 70-seat meeting room, six private offices and 12 desks for additional staff.
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A made-to-order open kitchen is near a 2,400-square foot picnic patio with 18 tables for dining and a long counter.
'I could totally see a wedding,' said Matt Ferry, the Yankees' director of baseball operations.
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Steinbrenner Field's regular-season team is the Yankees' Class A Tampa Tarpons, who will dress a 1.2-mile drive away at the team's minor league complex across Dale Mabry Highway and play home games on field two, a practice diamond behind Steinbrenner's first-base side.
Reminders of Yankees will remain
All the other signage is set to change — the new ones would stretch a mile laid side to side. Five companies, 50 installers and at least 80 Rays staff will carry out the conversion.
A method will be found to cover the floor tiles leading to the clubhouse bathrooms that spell out: 'The Bronx' and 'New York.' It was unclear whether the Rays can cover wallpaper near the showers meant to create the illusion of scenery viewed from a speeding subway. While the clubhouse is set up for spring training with 51 stalls along the walls circling the room and 28 in the center spread into four pods, the Rays thought it might be too difficult to remove the unneeded spaces in the middle.
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'We didn't do as much branding as we wanted to do because the Rays are going to cover most of it,' Ferry said.
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Yankees staff will remain in their fourth-floor offices, but the team will use the cramped visitors' clubhouse on the third-base side when the Rays host New York from April 17-20 and Aug. 19-20. Extra construction is being funded by the Rays.
Storms are likely in the summer
Absence of a roof figures to be disruptive in an area that had a record 80.29 inches of rain last year, according to the
Tampa Bay's schedule was adjusted to have 19 of its first 22 games at home and then 16 of 19 on the road from June 24 to July 13 and 19 of 22 from July 25 to Aug. 17.
'We're going to be playing outdoor baseball in Tampa Bay for the first time ever during the regular season and people have been talking about this for decades,' Walsh said. 'It's kind of in our DNA to be a bit of an agitator and try to find opportunity sort of through challenges and through doing things differently. And this is certainly doing things differently.'
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