{"id":206948,"date":"2026-03-26T14:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206948\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T14:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:23:23","slug":"rays-open-2026-season-in-st-louis-as-tropicana-field-repairs-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206948\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays open 2026 season in St. Louis as Tropicana Field repairs wrap up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The <\/p>\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> take the field in St. Louis Thursday at 4:15 p.m. to kick off the 2026 regular season.<\/p>\n

Tropicana Field Repairs <\/p>\n

It comes as crews put the finishing touches on a storm-battered Tropicana Field<\/a>. The team will be back in St. Pete<\/a> on April 6 to host the Chicago Cubs for the Rays\u2019 home opener. It will be the first game in the Trop since Hurricane Milton severely damaged the stadium late in 2024, forcing the team to play the 2025 season in Tampa at the Yankees\u2019 Steinbrenner Field.<\/p>\n

City officials confirm that repairs are on schedule for the April 6 home opener against the Chicago Cubs. The repairs included replacing the roof, installing new turf and remediating water damage throughout the interior, among other things.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The Rays have offered tickets for the home opener to the crews working on the project.<\/p>\n

The Rays are also offering a $10 credit in Burst Bucks that will be automatically added to fans\u2019 Rays Wallet in the MLB Ballpark app for every home game for the month of April. Fans can use it on food or merchandise. The team says it\u2019s their way of saying \u2018welcome back\u2019 to Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

For fans who weren\u2019t able to make it to St. Louis Thursday, the MLB is hosting a\u00a0watch party Thursday at Coastal Creative in St. Petersburg<\/a>\u00a0from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. for about $20. Fans can enjoy food and drinks, watch the game, there will be appearances by mascots Raymond and DJ Kitty and “MLB The Show” influencers competing live on large digital screens and more. Fans can buy tickets on Coastal Creative\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

Where the Rays will make their permanent home remains a central topic. Wednesday night, Rays CEO Ken Babby led a community meeting to discuss a proposed $2.3 billion ballpark and mixed-use district on the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Rays take $2.3 billion ballpark pitch to Tampa fans<\/a><\/p>\n

“There have been many starts, many stops, many prior attempts,” Babby said during the session. “We’re going to make this happen. This is Tampa\u2019s<\/a> deal, and we\u2019re excited to bring it home.”<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The proposal calls for a 30,000-seat indoor stadium, with the team pledging to cover half the cost and any overruns.<\/p>\n

The remaining funding would be sought through city and county contributions. If approved, the Rays hope to occupy the new facility by 2029.<\/p>\n

The state and the college have approved moving forward with discussions about using the property for the new ballpark. There\u2019s another public engagement session regarding the new stadium proposal scheduled for April 2 at Robinson High School in Tampa.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information in this story is from the Tampa Bay Rays, the MLB and reporting from FOX 13’s Kailey Tracy.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>Rays Stadium Plans<\/a>Rays<\/a>St. Petersburg<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Tampa Bay Rays take the field in St. Louis Thursday at 4:15 p.m.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,3817,115,1157,23181,6164,29208,554,202,204,203,199,201,200,628,14992],"class_list":["post-206948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-fl","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-rays","tag-rays-baseball","tag-rays-stadium","tag-science","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us","tag-wild-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206948","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=206948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}