Goodbye Al Lang Field: Rays Vs. Tigers

As you approach Al Lang Field (capacity 6,700), the first thing you notice are the street vendors. Old fashioned hot dogs, peanuts, and souvenirs can be bought right up next to the gate. Good luck finding that at a major ballpark! The stadium entries are stark concrete, but with crowns and coffers that break up the monotony.

The City has gone to lengths to ensure the stadium retains its historic quirks, but the average visitor would never know. It is mostly flat-face concrete. A concrete overhang shades about 20% of the grandstand seats. The seats themselves are comfortable, but the grandstands rise up higher than at the Trop. Being up this high provides an excellent view of the water past left field, the Albert Whitted Airport, and the University of South Florida campus. Seagulls, sailboats, and landing aircraft keep the outfield moving with action. Tickets in the grandstand are $12-$25. I sat in the grandstand, behind the plate, about 20 rows up.

It's a sellout today. The fans are here to see if the Rays are for real. The local boys are getting more media attention than ever before, and they are 1 win away from breaking their team spring record. The game got underway at 1:05, just like it was printed on the ticket. The day had started out cool and overcast, but the baseball gods pulled a fast one, delivering the most sunlight we Floridians had seen since last summer. People were caught unprepared, and sunburns began to show by the 4th inning. If there has ever been an advertisement against the proposed Rays stadium, this would be it: Rays fans roasting under the sun as the stadium sail gets rolled out halfway into the game. Only it doesn't provide temperature relief...so now the fans are roasting in a makeshift oven.

The game started slow, with Rays RHP James Shields pitching four straight shutout innings. He should be the Rays starter on Opening Day. Relief pitching was good, giving up only 2 runs late in the game. Some excellent hitting by B.J. Upton, Carlos Pena, and Mike DiFelice drove the Rays to a 7-2 win. Mike DiFelice made a strong case for the backup catcher slot. He had 2 RBI, a double, and a fantastic defensive play at the plate.

But I wasn't here just to watch baseball. I was here to spend one last afternoon in a ballpark that is witnessing its final moments of glory. It has seen multiple world series champions train there, including the Babe Ruth-years of the New York Yankees. Mayor Al Lang himself convinced the Philadelphia Nationals to spring train in St. Pete. In the years that followed, the Boston Braves (1922-1924), the Babe Ruth-.led New York Yankees (1925-1937), the St. Louis Cardinals (1938-1998), and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1999-2008) called it home. Minor league teams for the Cardinals, and then later Devil Rays kept the stadium busy year round. In 2000, Major League Baseball decided the Rays high Class A team was located too close to the big league club, and it was forced to be sold to Vero Beach, FL. With the last out at the bottom of the 9th on Friday, March 29th, Al Lang Stadium will end its storied place in baseball history.

When I was a kid, Al Lang Field was one of my favorite hangouts. Even when spring training wasn't in town, we could ride our bikes down the ramps of the facility and look out over the empty field. Occasionally one of us would get to go down on the field for a little league championship game, a band contest, or an antique car show. During spring training, we would skip school to come enjoy some baseball, from an child's point of view. There was a slim area behind the left field bullpen where there was no fence. The Cardinals knew it, but they didn't care. We'd watch the games for free through the hole in the fence, and then dart over to the locker rooms at the top of the 9th. Our top priority was getting autographs from the Cardinals teams that inhabited the stadium until 1998. In a particularly dense move, I got a ball signed by some guy named Todd Zeile. He became one of the most prominent infielders in the National League, but I started using the ball-- signature and all-- because I believed the ball to be signed by a worthless scrub. After all, I had been waiting for Ozzy Smith!

As we got older, school was still skipped, but we could afford to go inside the stadium now. Cheap, general admission berm or bleacher seats could be had for $3. What a great way to see your favorite players, sneak off from the authority figures, and impress your best gal. In 1998, the Devil Rays evicted the St. Louis Cardinals after 59 years. With the Devil Rays big league park only 13 blocks away (and the Rays being no so good), the thrill of going to Al Lang Field began to slump. In 2006, Rays President Andrew Friedman got his sights on the beautiful piece of property and started lining up his ducks. The Rays will move spring training to Charlotte County in 2008, leaving Al Lang vacant for the first time in 84 years. If the new stadium is approved, it will be knocked down.

The Rays are pushing hard for their new stadium. A white marker in right field shows where home plate in the new stadium would be. It would oriented to make it possible for left-handed batters to hit a home run into the water. Carlos Pena and his big lefty bat might not be around long enough to smack the inaugural homer into the Bay-- the stadium is slated for completion in 2012. The Rays mention the ballpark during every commercial break, on every promotional item, and on the PA system. If for no other reason, I hope the new stadium doesn't pass because of the media inundation we are going to have to endure to see our team this year.

If the stadium deal doesn't work out, we all hope that Al Lang Field finds a new tenant and keeps the baseball tradition alive in St. Petersburg. I would hate to see the park, for all its real-life and personal history, be torn down. It might be hard to understand for those not born and raised in St. Petersburg, but Al Lang Field represents a big part of our lives. It represents a big part of our city's prosperity, and it represents a bygone era when extracting every dollar from your host city and loyal fans was not the norm.