By Claire Brinsden Jordan
While our beloved Tampa Bay Rays may be one of the three newest teams in Major League Baseball, St. Petersburg has a long history as a baseball town. For over 135 years, MLB teams have held their spring training in Florida, and the cities that have hosted the most years are Tampa and St. Petersburg. In fact, since 1914 more Major League spring training games have been played in St Petersburg than in any other city.
In 1913, city leaders founded the St. Petersburg Major League and Amusement Company with the hopes of attracting an MLB team for spring training. Albert Fielding Lang, known locally as “Al Lang”, was one of these leaders, and served as mayor from 1916-1920. Lang was a baseball fanatic, having grown up a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and he believed that St. Pete, with its warm spring weather, palm trees, and ocean views, offered the perfect venue for spring training. He also believed that baseball would bring much needed tourism to St Pete, so he cleaned up the city and then worked tirelessly to convince MLB team owners to come for spring training. Pittsburg Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss wrote back, “You must think I’m a damn fool to train in a whistle stop little one tank town.”
Fortunately, persistence paid off and in 1914 the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) signed a one-year contract to come to St Pete for spring training. They were lured with financial incentives to help offset expenses for rooms and meals for players and team reporters. St Pete’s first ballpark was Coffee Pot Bayou Park, officially named “Sunshine Park”, which doesn’t exist anymore. There is speculation about its exact location, but some believe it was in the Grenada Terrace neighborhood on Coffee Pot Bayou, near Grenada Terrace Park. Despite the great weather in the spring of 1914, the Browns only stayed one year, moving to Houston the next year, where they had terrible weather. The Phillies, who had trained in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1914, in poor weather conditions, came to St Pete for spring training in 1915 and went on to win their first National League pennant that year. They stayed through 1918. Al Lang offered to sell Coffee Pot Park to the Phillies for the tiny sum of $17,500 to keep the team in St Pete, but they declined. Just six years later the property was valued at $500,000.
For players from big cities in the north, St Pete was a tad dull, the food was unappetizing, and their lodgings at the Fifth Avenue Hotel were somewhat rundown. In 1916 the Phillies switched to the more upscale Edgewater Inn on Beach Drive. Their days began with a two mile walk from the hotel to the ballpark as part of their physical conditioning. During breaks in practice at Sunshine Park, players would often fish in Coffee Pot Bayou. In their off hours, players enjoyed the beach, and dances were scheduled at the hotel. St Pete was a dry city at that time, so alcohol was prohibited, although easy to procure from rumrunners. When players started gambling late into the night, that was ended by their team manager. Still, the players found ways to entertain themselves with plenty of adventures and sometimes misadventures. Steamers would bring fans to Coffee Pot Bayou from Tampa to ensure plenty of spectators for spring training games.
In 1922 city leaders wanted to expand the baseball footprint to lure another team and built Waterfront Park just north of the site of Al Lang Stadium, which could hold 5,000 fans. The home plate of Waterfront Park was in the middle of the current parking lot at Al Lang Stadium. The Boston Braves arrived that year and returned to St Pete every Spring until 1937. In 1925 the New York Yankees also came to St Pete for spring training, including their star player, Babe Ruth. It is rumored that Ruth hit a ball from Waterfront Park to the West Coast Inn, now site of the Hilton Hotel – a distance of 624 feet! The Yankees came back every year through 1961, except during the four years of World War II when teams were not allowed to travel. After the Boston Braves left in 1937, the St Louis Cardinals trained in St Pete from 1938 until 1997.
At first the Yankees used Miller Huggins Field, near Crescent Lake, but moved downtown permanently in 1947 when Waterfront Park was demolished and replaced by Al Lang Field just a block away. In 1955 the movie Strategic Air Command, starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, was filmed at Al Lang Field. Some of the most famous sluggers who played on St Pete’s waterfront include Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Aaron. A total of 193 Hall of Famers played or managed on St Pete’s waterfront. During spring training, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig lived in penthouse units of the Flori-de-Leon apartment building on 4th Avenue North.
In the1960’s, baseball played a role in the desegregation of St Petersburg. Florida State Law, even in the early 1960’s, held that players of color could not stay in the same hotel as white players. Local African American doctors Ralph Wimbish and Robert Swain found homes for African American players with local families, and they later became leaders for the desegregation of baseball players. In 1962 the Yankees left St Pete because of these laws that did not allow all their players to stay together. The threat of more MLB teams leaving Florida prompted a change to these laws, and by 1964 all the MLB teams in Florida had desegregated the living arrangements for their players.
From 1976-1977 Al Lang Field was demolished and replaced by Al Lang Stadium. During this time teams played at Campbell Park on 14th Street South. In the 1980’s city leaders wanted to lure a Major League Baseball team to make St Petersburg its permanent home, so they decided to build a new stadium. They demolished the gas plant neighborhood beginning in 1984, and soon encountered environmental contamination from the site’s former occupants. The Florida Suncoast Dome cost $138 million to build, and opened on February 28, 1990, without a baseball team. For the next few years, the dome hosted concerts, football, tennis, and even the Tampa Bay Lightning. In fact, from 1993-1996 it was called the “Thunderdome”. St Pete lost out on getting a team in the 1993 MLB expansion but triumphed in 1995 when they secured the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In 1996 the dome closed for 17 months to undergo $85 million in renovations. That same year Tropicana purchased the naming rights; hence it became known as “The Trop”. In 1998 the Tampa Bay Devil Rays held their first home opener, and to promote it a baseball was passed along a human chain from City Hall to Tropicana Field. In October 2008 the first World Series game was played at Tropicana Field between the Rays and the Phillies. The Tropicana Field lease ends in 2027, and a redevelopment plan, known as the Rays/Hines partnership is in the works for a new stadium to be constructed by 2028 just to the east of the Trop.
On March 28, 2008, the last spring training baseball game was played at Al Lang Stadium. In 2016 Al Lang Stadium was re-designed for soccer as the home of our Tampa Bay Rowdies. Today fifteen of the MLB teams hold spring training in Florida and are known as the “Grapefruit League”. The other teams train in Arizona and are known as the “Cactus League”. For a more in-depth look at the history of baseball in St Petersburg, read Rick Vaughn’s book, 100 Years of Baseball on St. Petersburg’s Waterfront: How the Game Helped Shape a City. You can also check out The St Petersburg Museum of History, home to “Schrader’s Little Cooperstown” which is the largest collection of autographed baseballs (certified by Guinness World Records). The exhibit includes stories and artifacts of baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson and more.