Stadium For Rent: Tampa Bay's Quest for Baseball

STADIUM FOR RENT Tampa Bay's Quest for Major League Baseball

By Bob Andelman

Introduction

In the history of baseball -- perhaps the history of professional sports in the United States -- no community risked as much or embarrassed itself to the degree that the City of St. Petersburg did in its pursuit of a Major League Baseball team. It was the community that didn't understand no, or no way, or go away, kid, you're bothering me.

Through eight near-misses -- the Tampa Bay Twins, Florida White Sox, Tampa Bay Rangers, Florida Athletics, Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Whitecaps (the planned names of the stillborn National League expansion franchise) Tampa Bay Mariners and Tampa Bay Giants -- the region's baseball boosters kept hope alive.

Locals may never agree on whether a stadium should have been built in St. Petersburg or Tampa, but they always believed that one day the major league game would be played locally, long after spring training ended.

And no matter what happened, no matter what anyone told them to the contrary, they always believed baseball had its eye on Tampa Bay.

"Baseball is watching us," they'd tell each other.

Newspaper publisher Jack Lake said it. So did minor league team owner A. Ray Smith, business executive Jim Healey, St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce general manager Howard DeFreitas, assistant city manager Rick Dodge and city councilman Bob Stewart. Car dealer Frank Morsani said it, too.

Maybe baseball was paying attention to the Tampa Bay area -- including St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and dozens of smaller communities -- in the early years, when Bowie Kuhn sat in the baseball commissioner's chair. But when Kuhn left the job to Peter Ueberroth, Bart Giamatti and Fay Vincent, baseball's attention shifted to other cities and other topics.

That didn't stop local baseball dreamers in the Clutch Hitters and the baseball council of the chamber of commerce from repeating their mantra, over and over and over again.

When Boston Red Sox all-star and Tampa native Wade Boggs wanted to host a celebrity tournament at Al Lang Stadium, St. Petersburg had to sell tickets. Years earlier, boosters fought to keep the annual Governor's Baseball Dinner in St. Petersburg against considerable odds.

"Everything we did in this town, we did to make a favorable impression on baseball," St. Petersburg attorney Doug Williamson says.

Promoters came to know the Tampa Bay area's desperation and took advantage of the business community's willingness to spend money, hustle tickets or cha-cha down Central Avenue if it would earn a favorable nod from baseball.

"It was our own fault for letting it happen," St. Petersburg businessman Mike Davenport says. "The chamber would have a 'Chamber of Commerce Night' at Al Lang Stadium for the St. Petersburg Cardinals and we'd have to fill the stadium because 'baseball is watching.' "

Stephen Porter, former president of the Class A St. Petersburg Cardinals and one-time candidate for a National League expansion team told the Tampa Bay area baseball community in 1991 that, "One thing you could do to impress baseball is fill Al Lang Stadium every night for the St. Petersburg Cardinals."

As ridiculous and contrived as that sounded, Porter replanted the seed.

" 'God,' you think, 'baseball is watching us -- maybe we need to do that,' " Williamson says. "And so we supported the St. Petersburg Cardinals and the St. Louis Cardinals." Quite effectively, too; the St. Petersburg Cardinals set season and single-game Florida State League attendance records in 1989 and 1990. Spring training attendance for the St. Louis Cardinals -- never a hard sell -- nonetheless rose in 1991 as St. Petersburg made its plea for an expansion franchise.

The end of "baseball is watching us" came in 1991 when baseball skipped over Steve Porter's cash-poor Tampa Bay Whitecaps and created the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins expansion franchises.

Was baseball ever watching St. Petersburg?

"Not really," Philadelphia Phillies president Bill Giles says, laughing.
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St. Petersburg wasn't always thick-headed. For 50 years, it wascontent to be the spring training home of at least two big league teams, hosting games at waterfront Al Lang Stadium.

You could walk into Mastry's Bar downtown in the 1920s and '30s and bend elbows with Babe Ruth. A generation later, it was Joltin' Joe DiMaggio eating popcorn and taking in a movie on Central Avenue. Or Stan "The Man" Musial, chatting up an irrepressible fan -- and future newspaper publisher -- after a game.

And that was just the visiting talent.

Baseball legends such as Al Lopez and "Sweet" Lou Piniella were born-and-raised Tampa boys. By the 1980s and early '90s, the Tampa Bay area could field an entire team of big league talent: Dwight Gooden, Wade Boggs, Howard Johnson, Gary Sheffield, Tino Martinez and Ty Griffith.

More spring training games have been played in St. Petersburg than in any other city. Few other cities ever simultaneously hosted two teams; St. Petersburg's guests over the years included the St. Louis Browns, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles. Before their 1951 championship season, the New York Giants spent their spring in St. Petersburg.

"Baseball and St. Petersburg," retired St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce general manager Howard DeFreitas says, "have been synonymous."

Along came the 1970s and the population of St. Petersburg -- the entire Tampa Bay area and State of Florida, in fact -- boomed. And with all the new arrivals came their love of baseball and baseball teams from across the Northeast and Midwest.

Why didn't Tampa Bay have a team of its own?

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