Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team stats, statistics, stadium, roster, information

Stadium

Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, closed its doors in October 1996 for a 17-month, $85 million facelift that transformed the facility from functional to intriguingly innovative, incorporating baseball traditions throughout the dining, shopping and entertainment complex while adding 319,000 square feet of space.

Originally named the Florida Suncoast Dome and then the ThunderDome, Tropicana Field's 1.1 million square feet include unique design features and fan amenities found nowhere else in the Major Leagues.

• Tropicana Field is the first major league park in more than 20 years to feature artificial turf and all-dirt base paths. It features the new, naturally looking FieldTurf. All of the other five major league parks that currently feature artificial turf have only dirt cutouts around the bases and at the pitcher's mound. Only four other artificial turf ballparks have ever featured all-dirt base paths: Houston's Astrodome (1966-1971); San Francisco's Candlestick Park in 1971; Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium in the early '70s; and, most recently, St. Louis' Busch Stadium (1970-1976). Chicago's Comiskey Park had all-dirt base paths with an artificial turf infield and grass outfield in the early 1970's.
• In keeping with baseball's traditions, the bullpens were relocated after the 1998 season to the field, giving fans a clear view of activity before and during games. The Devil Rays bullpen is located along the right field line, while the visitors' bullpen is located along the left field line.
• Seats behind the backstop are some of the closest in the major leagues - only 50 feet from home plate.
• Of the 319,000 square feet that was added to the facility - including new and wider concourses - it is the area known as Center Field Street that commands the most attention. This bustling area, open year round, features the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar, baseball's first in-stadium cigar bar, as well as the Batter's Eye Restaurant, located, appropriately, in the "batter's eye" in center field. The specially tinted windows of the restaurant make up a 130-foot-wide hitting background, yet still allow patrons of the restaurant to watch the game. Also found on Center Field Street are the Jack Daniel's Billiards Hall, the Budweiser Brew House with its adjoining family entertainment center, merchandise outlets, a bank, a travel agency, the Mountain Dew rock climbing wall, a kid-sized concession stand with kid-sized prices, and a food court known as the Taste of Tampa Bay, which features cuisine from some of the area's most popular restaurants.
• The Hall of Fame Lounge, located on the mezzanine level behind home plate, is open to fans with Home Plate Box, Field Box, Lower Club Box, Diamond Club or suite tickets. Fans can enjoy a beverage and a premium cigar.
• The Tropicana Room is the most versatile venue in the stadium, featuring a buffet with carved meats, pastas, salads, and more at evening games and brunch at afternoon games. It is located on the mezzanine level behind home plate and available on game days to fans with a Home Plate Box, Field Box, Lower Club Box, Diamond Club or suite tickets.
• The Rays Bullpen Café, located directly behind the Rays' bullpen in the right field corner, offers picnic-style seating and in-seat wait service.
• On the expanded concourses are nearly 290 points of sale, believed to be among the most in Major League Baseball. Eight escalators and seven elevators provide fans with easy access between levels.
• Ebbets Field was an influence for Tropicana Field in two ways - one by coincidence, the other by design. Tropicana Field's asymmetrical outfield dimensions closely follow those of the Brooklyn Dodgers' old home; a fact that became evident only after those measurements had been determined. Conversely, Tropicana Field's grand, eight-story-high rotunda entrance is designed from the very blueprints used for the rotunda at Ebbets Field, built in 1913.
• Fans can enter the rotunda by following a 900-foot, tropical-theme ceramic mosaic walkway. Called SunSations, The Florida Power Walkway is the largest outdoor ceramic mural in Florida and one of the five largest in the United States. Made with 1,849,091 brightly colored 1x1 inch tiles, it depicts the sun, sea and beach. A sound system delivers replays of great moments in baseball, play-byplay of Devil rays games, and music accompanied by synchronized theatrical lighting that casts different shapes and configurations along the way.
• The roof of the dome is lit orange after the Devil Rays win at home, symbolic of the ballpark's title sponsor, Tropicana Dole Beverages.
• Tropicana Field features the world's second-largest cable-supported domed roof (Georgia Dome is the largest). It's made of six acres of translucent, Teflon-coated fiberglass and it virtually supports itself with 180 miles of cables connected by struts. Opposing forces of tension and compression keep the roof in an arc. Tropicana Field's roof is slanted at a 6.5-degree angle, dropping from 225 feet above second base to 85 feet at the center field wall. The slanted roof reduced the overall construction costs and decreased the volume of air under the dome by 16.8 million cubic feet. Accordingly, that reduced the amount of air that requires climate control treatment. It is built to withstand wind of up to 115 miles per hour.

In March 2000, Tropicana Field became the first Major League Baseball stadium to install FieldTurf, a revolutionary synthetic grass. The first professional baseball game played on the new surface occurred on April 7, 2000, when the Rays hosted the Cleveland Indians in their home opener.

FieldTurf combines blades of artificial grass with a specially patented infill mixture of sand and ground rubber. The ground rubber is a recycled material made from used NIKE athletic shoes. It took 500 tons of clay shipped in from Tennessee to build the base paths. Called "Mar Mix," the infield dirt is a carefully blended mixture of 54 percent sand, 32 percent clay and 14 percent silt. Another type of clay, Blue Gumbo, is used for the pitcher's mound and batter's box.

The infill surrounds each FieldTurf fiber like natural earth holds a blade of grass and provides a non-compactable, resilient, natural earth feel. Tropicana Field remains the only professional baseball stadium with FieldTurf, which can be also found at the University of Washington's Stadium (where the Seattle Seahawks played in 2000 and 2001), the University of Nebraska's football stadium, the Cleveland Browns' practice facility and the Pittsburgh Steelers' practice facility.

Tropicana Field History

The original Florida Suncoast Dome was opened to the public on March 3, 1990, at a cost of $138 million. It became the ThunderDome in 1993 with the arrival of the area's National Hockey League expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was renamed Tropicana Field on Oct. 4, 1996, in accordance with a naming rights agreement between the Devil Rays and Tropicana Dole Beverages North America, located in Bradenton.

Though originally built for baseball, there have been 16 other sports and competitions presented in the facility. These include hockey, basketball, football, sprint car racing, gymnastics, soccer, tennis, weightlifting, ping-pong, karate, motorcycle racing, equestrian events, track and figure skating.

The facility has set attendance records in a number of sports. During their three seasons playing in the building, the Lightning established the top 20 attendance marks in NHL history. On April 23, 1996, a crowd of 28,183 attended Game Four of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers - the largest single-game attendance figure in NHL history.

The Arena Football League's Tampa Bay Storm set all its records while playing in the facility, including the largest single-game record of 28,746. In 1990, Davis Cup tennis was played at the dome, with a record crowd of 53,150 attending the three-day event. Also in 1990, 25,710 NBA fans saw the Chicago Bulls play an exhibition game against the Seattle Supersonics in what was then the largest crowd ever to attend a basketball game in the state of Florida. That figure was surpassed first by the 26,102 who attended the 1994 first-round NCAA Regionals, then again on March 20 and 22, 1998, when sellout crowds of 40,589 - a record for a non-Final Four game - watched the NCAA Regional and semifinal games featuring Syracuse, UCLA, Duke and Kentucky. The 1999 Final Four, featuring Duke, Ohio State, Michigan State and eventual-champion Connecticut, drew capacity crowds of 40,632 and 39,113 on March 27 and 29. The largest crowd to date - 47,150 - appeared at the Aug. 11, 1990, concert featuring The New Kids on the Block.