On Oct. 19, 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Boston Red Sox at Tropicana Field to reach the World Series for the first time. Eighteen years later, to the day, another crowd filled the same building to watch the Rays defeat Cleveland 7-3 and claim their third American League pennant.
Friday, the Rays begin the World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. They have never won a championship. For St. Petersburg, the possibility of celebrating one at Tropicana Field comes as the city’s nearly three-decade relationship with the franchise approaches its end.
The Rays are preparing to move across the bay to Tampa when their agreement with Tropicana Field expires after the 2028 season. The city that spent decades pursuing Major League Baseball will soon be without a team of its own.
St. Petersburg built the Florida Suncoast Dome, later renamed Tropicana Field, before it had a major league franchise. When the expansion Devil Rays finally arrived in 1998, the city had secured something few communities its size could claim: a permanent place in Major League Baseball.
The early years offered little reason to celebrate. The Devil Rays lost at least 90 games in each of their first 10 seasons. Then came 2008, when a young team led by manager Joe Maddon transformed a perennial last-place club into American League champions.
A child who attended the inaugural game in 1998 could now be bringing a child of their own to the Trop. St. Petersburg has raised its first generation of Rays fans, many of whom learned the game alongside their parents. They grew up with the cowbells, the stingray touch tank, the players who came and went and a stadium that became as familiar as any other downtown landmark.
For almost 30 years, the Rays have given people from across St. Petersburg a reason to gather. A retiree from Michigan and a teenager from Childs Park could find themselves sitting in the same section, wearing the same colors and arguing with the same umpire. Families from different neighborhoods shared summer evenings at the ballpark. Strangers talked baseball in grocery store lines and at neighborhood bars. A Tuesday night game in July could become a family tradition.
The team’s presence also established a rhythm for downtown businesses. Eighty-one scheduled home games brought customers to restaurants, bars and hotels, along with the less predictable rewards of postseason baseball. The St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce has estimated that a playoff game can generate $4 million to $7 million in local economic activity, although that figure does not represent a measured net gain to the city.
When the Rays leave, some of that spending will follow them to Tampa. St. Petersburg will also lose the visiting teams, traveling fans and national broadcasts that have connected the city to one of America’s major professional sports leagues. For children growing up here, having a major league team nearby has made baseball something they could experience in their own hometown.
The relationship has had its frustrations. Even successful Rays teams struggled to fill Tropicana Field, and stadium negotiations consumed years of political attention. The franchise carried the Tampa Bay name, but its home was always St. Petersburg. The city supported a team whose regional identity sometimes obscured the place where every home game was played.
The 2020 World Series – between the Rays and the L.A. Dodgers – unfolded under pandemic restrictions, with fans watching from living rooms rather than gathering at the Trop. This October has brought the crowds back, along with the possibility of witnessing the franchise’s first championship on its home field.
Hurricane Milton’s destruction of the Trop’s roof in 2024 forced the Rays to spend the following season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. Their return to a repaired Tropicana Field this spring brought baseball back to downtown, followed by another extraordinary season and a pennant.
For the generation that grew up with the Rays, the move will change familiar routines. The team will remain in Tampa Bay, close enough to follow and visit. But the drive to the ballpark will be different. So will the sight of Tropicana Field’s glowng orange roof breathing life into downtown, the walk through its gates and the feeling that major league baseball belongs to St. Petersburg.
On Monday night, thousands of fans stood inside the Trop and celebrated a pennant, just as another crowd had done 18 years earlier. Some were there both times. Others had not yet been born when the Rays made their first World Series appearance.
There are two more seasons scheduled at the Trop after this one, with more opening days, summer evenings and chances to make memories. For now, St. Petersburg has a World Series to celebrate, and the possibility of watching the team it raised become champions.