Tropicana isn't a draw, but is it the problem?
Tropicana Field hasn't engendered the warm feelings that other new, retro-style parks around the majors have.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published March 7, 2005
Jeff Adams knows what it's like to smell baseball.
Adams grew up in Chicago and still revels in the glorious setting that is Wrigley Field. The open air, the sunshine and, yes, the smells, all of which he said he can't get at Tropicana Field.
"When you walk through the aisle to come out on the field, you don't smell the grass or anything else," the St. Petersburg lawyer said. "I'd love to see baseball played outside."On the other hand, he said of the Trop, "I sure am a lot more comfortable sitting in the air conditioning than the humidity."
Adams, a season-ticket holder, personifies the love-hate relationship the Devil Rays and their fans have with a stadium that looks from the outside like an open umbrella lying on its edge and is at the same time comfortable and inconvenient, practical and obsolete.Those can be important distinctions at a time when the venues in which teams play 1/3 their amenities, entertainment options and even food quality - seem to be as important as how teams perform.
"The in-park experience is at least as important as the game itself," sports business consultant Peter Bavasi said in an e-mail.
The Trop has great sight lines, but sits in a part of downtown St. Petersburg generally untouched by the city's economic revival.
Its dome protects from the sometimes harsh west-central Florida weather (it's always 71 degrees inside). But construction began in January 1987, at the end of an era of bland multiuse stadiums and prior to baseball's retro craze (think Baltimore's Camden Yards) in which architecture and ambiance are part of what brings fans to the park.
Some believe the Trop, which opened in 1990 and wasn't used for baseball until the Rays' inaugural 1998 season, should have been built closer to the larger population centers in northern Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
"We wanted to put it right there where the Carillon Center is," said Tampa businessman Frank Morsani, who tried unsuccessfully to bring major league baseball to the area. "That would have been the center of the demographics for people to attend baseball games."
The current location trumped all others because, as the Times reported in 1982, the city owned the site and agreed to a 40- to 50-year lease at $1 a year.
The price certainly was right. The question is whether the stadium is part of what is wrong with the Rays.
Does its location and languid atmosphere keep fans away? Or, as Adams said, "As soon as the team is in a playoff race, it will be amazing how short a drive it will be and all you will hear about is what the pitching matchup is this weekend."
Opinions differ.
A random Times telephone survey of 400 Tampa Bay area baseball fans found 45 percent do not plan to attend games this season. Twenty percent of those said the reason was the Trop's location - tied for the top answer with "I'm too old."
But former St. Petersburg mayor David Fischer said, "It's comfortable and clean and you can take your grandkids there and feel safe. As far as convenience goes, go to a Bucs game and try to get out of there in two hours."
"The Trop is the Trop," slugger Aubrey Huff said. "It's not a great stadium, but it gets it done here. Ideally you'd want a retractable roof ... but that's not going to happen."Instead, the Rays have a simple, round structure that cost $138-million to build, went through an $85-million renovation in 1996 and features the world's second-largest cable-supported roof after the Georgia Dome.
The Trop is well-lit inside but, nestled between Interstates 275 and 175, does not set a scene like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park or even Texas' Ameriquest Field. And with so few fans, there isn't the built-in energy of, say, Seattle's Safeco Field, Yankee Stadium or even Shea Stadium.
And though Mike Veeck, the Rays' former senior vice president of sales and marketing, said, "The Trop is a much better indoor facility than the old Kingdome was and the Metrodome is," the only built-in character is the asymmetrical outfield dimensions and four catwalks that ring the roof and are usually ridiculed by players whenever a batted ball ricochets off one.
"It just doesn't feel like baseball in there," former Rays pitcher Joe Kennedy said.Said player agent Alan Meersand: "No one wants to see a last-place team in an indoor stadium. But even if you had a brand new stadium and a bad team, I don't think it would matter. I think the stadium doesn't matter."
Then again, he said, maybe it does.
"People don't say, "Hey, let's go to the Tropicana Dome.' It's not a destination."Bavasi, who did economic and non-economic impact studies for the Pinellas Sports Authority to support the stadium initiative, said Trop-bashing is just plain wrong.
"If you're looking for excuses or reasons why the franchise hasn't succeeded, either financially or artistically, an easy target is the stadium," he said. "Fact is, it's a lame excuse. You need to do the things necessary to make your place of business inviting to your customers, period."
The Rays have spruced up the interior with green paint (a process that continued in the offseason) and added bright colors and designs on vinyl to the facades, catwalks and rotunda. The team also promotes the Beach section in the leftfield stands, various picnic and party areas, lounges where food is available, a cigar bar and a restaurant.
A major addition for this season is a state-of-the-art LED display board on the front facade of the Beach. At 6 feet tall and 250 feet long, it is a $750,000 investment. And for the first time, thanks to a joint effort with the city, the stadium eventually will have an outdoor marquee overlooking Interstate 275 to promote the team. A nice touch considering the team's name is nowhere on the outside of the building.
"That's a first step and it's the right thing to do," Veeck said of the improvements. "The second thing is your customer service has to be impeccable. It's not, "You don't have tickets to this section.' It's gently handling people and building bonds with fans, relationships with fans. It needs A-1 customer service. It's doable that way."
Dave Auker, the Rays' senior vice president of business operations, said parking attendants, ushers and other stadium workers have been "challenged" to be more fan friendly. And parking lot booths will have signs that welcome fans to the stadium.
"We're trying to think of this from the minute you pull into the parking lot to the minute you get to your seat," Auker said. "We've tried to analyze all the facets of the experience. Everything that's in our realm of influence we're going to try and improve.
"It's a really conscious effort. As trivial as it may seem, putting a sign on a parking booth with a Devil Rays logo is a step in the right direction."
Will the touches make a difference? Perhaps. Auker said fans liked last season's paint job. But it is part of a larger picture that got a look from May 30 through July 3, when the Rays were 24-7, had a 12-game winning streak and averaged 16,571 for 14 home dates, 1,442 more than the season average.
"Oh, it was baseball, there were people, they were excited," Adams said. "They were talking about it. It was beautiful. If we win, the Trop becomes all the better a facility."
"I guarantee you," Veeck said, "if they come out of the box this year and win their first 27 games, it won't matter if it's in Keokuk."
--Times staff writer Marc Topkin contributed to this report.