Tour of Ballparks - Episode 4: Tropicana Field, St Petersburg, Fl

Our tour of ballparks continues. This time in Florida. I was here in St. Pete about 10 years ago for work and I really liked this little town. I’d mentioned it to John several times as one of the places I wanted for us to go together.

This year is our 23rd anniversary on 9/23/2023. It’s one of those dates when you look at it and think when will that happen again? We decided to pick a place to go and celebrate. I whipped out my phone, did a little google search and found that the Tampa Bay Rays were at home on our anniversary. It was a sign!

I casually suggested we go to Tampa for the weekend and catch a game. We could visit another stadium and have a lovely weekend getaway. John was agreeable though he did make it clear that my anniversary dinner was going to be a ballpark hotdog and I thought, this just keeps getting better! 

It’s almost the end of the season and it’s exciting down here because the Rays are in the hunt for a playoff spot.

You can’t really tell, but the sign says Tropicana Field. For those hip fans, it's called “the Trop” and it is the only domed stadium in Major League Baseball that doesn’t have a retractable roof. Of course, it wasn’t designed specifically for the Rays. It's a multi-purpose stadium but it's been home to the Rays since 1998.

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The inside of the dome. It’s one of the worst stadiums in baseball. The white ceiling makes it difficult to see the ball when its popped up high. It's also one of the smallest stadiums in terms of capacity and yet, you never see anyone seated in that upper deck. The stadium has an interesting layout. The odd numbers sections are on one side of the field and the even numbers on the other. We were in section 145 and those folks across the field were in section 146.

As a side note, if the ball hits any part of the catwalk up in the dome, it’s an automatic home run. You'd think that would be a strategy.

The Tampa Bay Rays played the Toronto Blue Jays. (Jays at bat, Rays in the field). As luck would have it, we sat next to some Canadians who were Jays fans. Nice people. It was interesting talking to them.

The bullpen is along side the first and third baseline. The pitchers are just sitting there totally unprotected! John says that’s how it used to be back in the old days. I would not want to be sitting there when a foul ball was hit in that direction. But maybe that's how they make the bullpen pay attention to the game.

The requisite selfie. We had great seats in the outfield. The first batter hit a homer and it came straight at us. While everyone else was trying to catch the ball, I was ducking. We were very close to the players. One kid kept yelling at Harold Ramirez (outfielder for the Rays) and when Ramirez finally turned around, the kid asked, "Will you sign my baseball?" Harold nodded and the kid left happy. I don't know if Ramirez actually signed the ball but I was surprised he would even interact with the fans.

They have an aquarium where they have stingrays. You can’t really tell but in the upper right corner where the crazy kid has his hand in the water, there are two of them. I thought this was a thing like how the Miami Dolphins have a Dolphin tank at their stadium. But no, the Rays were not originally called the "Stingrays" so I'm not sure why they have stingrays at their stadium. Maybe that's just a Florida thing. The team was originally the Devil Rays.

Another little nugget of info: The Rays chief rivals are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. I guess because they're in the same division. Who knew?

As it turns out, it's a good thing we went to the stadium this year. The Rays are getting a new stadium soon. Now we have to go back!

Yum! My chili dog at the ballpark! It did not disappoint. As a side note, the Rays won, 7 - 6 in the 9th inning after blowing a 5 run lead. What a fun time and a great game!

And now for the rest of the trip...

We stayed at the Hampton Inn on Beach Street - which is an excellent location. It's about a block from the water. Everything was within walking distance. Our room had an actual balcony that overlooked Beach Street. The balcony on the upper floor in the middle of the building is our room. 

A view of the St. Petersburg skyline. We came out Wednesday night. On Thursday, it’s was very quiet downtown. It was almost like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Chillin’ as we walk along the bay wall. The weather is beautiful. The other thing that I like about this place is how walkable this area is. We didn't bother to get a car. We walked everywhere, which was great.

We walked over to the Dalí Museum. This was a cool little place featuring the works of Salvador Dali.

I liked this painting because Dali painted himself into the scene.  It’s called the Ecumenical Council.

This is my favorite painting.  When you look at it in person, it’s a nude woman and a shape of a cross.  It wasn’t until I took the photo that I realized it was an image of Abraham Lincoln. Brilliant!

There's Tampa, across the bay from St. Petersburg. It's a cool skyline. To get to St. Pete, you have to drive across this cool bridge, right over the bay. I love a good bridge.

Tampa/St. Pete is about where Orlando is in terms of location (a little further south) except that Tampa/St. Pete is on the Gulf side. I had to look at this map several times to get a perspective on where I was!

St. Pete Pier. I thought there would be more stuff out here. It had great potential but perhaps structurally, there's not a lot of room for much more than what's there.

On the pier, there’s a little beach and a playground. Then at the end, there’s a big building where there’s a snack bar, a restaurant and a bar. There’s also an area at the end of the pier where people can fish.  There were lots of people fishing.

This was what I really like. The view. That’s Tampa Bay. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It's very calming to watch the water. 

A little bit of night life.  Appetizers at the 5 Buck Drinkery. Central Ave (aka 2nd Ave) seemed to be where all the locals hung out. We sat outside one night and watched this older fella hit on all the women that walked by. Then he tabbed out of this bar and went on to the next. It was funny!

An after dinner walk in the park. All the trees were lit up. It was beautiful. Some of the trees were ginormous and had to be hundreds of years old. Luckily, St. Pete has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since 1921 (Knock on wood!).

The next day we walked to Sunken Gardens. This place is a throwback to the 70’s. I could have sworn I’d been here before with my parents.

It was a cool arboretum like place. One of the docents was the granddaughter of the original owner. And they had real pink flamingos.

The cheesy souvenir sign. It was a cool little botanical garden and right in the middle of the city!

The park across from the hotel was right along the water. It was so cool. We walked out there several days (and evenings).  There were several benches out there where we would just sit and chill.  People-watching out there is pretty good. I could spend a good amount of time right here on this bench.

It was a fantastic trip until "going home" day. We got up early as our flight was at 10 am. This was such a beautiful sunrise. The colors are amazing. 

We got in the Uber and just as it pulled away from the curb, we got a text that our flight was delayed 2 hours.  Rats!

Then when we got to the airport, another text. Delayed 2 more hours. Double Rats! We finally took off about 7pm.  I'm just grateful we got home! Still, it was a great trip. We had lots of fun and would love to go back.

Thanks, St. Petersburg!  Hope to see you again soon.