{"id":157343,"date":"2026-02-16T17:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157343\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:16:08","slug":"tropicana-field-looks-good-as-new-as-repairs-remain-on-track-tampa-bay-rays-look-to-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157343\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropicana Field looks \u2018good as new\u2019 as repairs remain on track, Tampa Bay Rays look to return home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tropicana Field is \u201clooking as good as new,\u201d or at least \u201cas close to new\u201d as a 36-year-old ballpark \u201cbuilt on the cheap\u201d in the 1980s can look, amid ongoing repairs to the roof<\/a> and interior of the ballpark<\/a>, according to John Romano of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. At the height of construction, there were \u201cabout 350 workers\u201d on site daily. They are now down to \u201cabout 225 people\u201d working a normal day shift. St. Petersburg Managing Dir of City Development Administration Beth Herendeen said that the job is \u201cexpected to come in at, or a little under,\u201d the $59.7M approved by the City Council<\/a>. The city is getting $10.8M \u201cin insurance,\u201d at least $16.5M from FEMA<\/a> and is \u201chopeful of receiving\u201d $2.75M from the state. That total would cover \u201capproximately half\u201d the cost of the repairs. The Rays are also spending an \u201cunspecified amount to repair their offices,\u201d which are expected to be completed \u201cby opening day,\u201d and to \u201cfund the upgrades\u201d to the premium seating areas and video boards (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 2\/13<\/a>). <\/p>\n

COMING HOME: In Boston, Peter Abraham wrote the team is \u201chappy to be going back to its humble home.\u201d Rays President of Baseball Operations Erik Neander has been with the team for 20 years and during most of that time, the team \u201cwrestled with what was wrong with the Trop.\u201d Neander said, \u201cNow it\u2019s about everything that\u2019s right with it. It\u2019s home and it\u2019s a place where we\u2019re comfortable. We\u2019ve constructed our rosters to compete in that building.\u201d The Rays have \u201calways succeeded\u201d with pitching and defense, and the Trop has been \u201cmore advantageous for pitchers\u201d over the years (BOSTON GLOBE, 2\/14<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tropicana Field is \u201clooking as good as new,\u201d or at least \u201cas close to new\u201d as a 36-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3816,3817,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-157343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}