Title

Like sports? Pinellas County has plenty

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Chicago White Sox

Last evening we journeyed down to St. Petersburg (that’s south Pinellas County as opposed to my home turf in North Pinellas County) to take in a Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field. The trip included a flat tire and an hour-and-a-half at a St. Pete Tire Kingdowm store, but that’s another story.

A lot of people don’t like Tropicana Field because it’s a domed stadium with astroturf and it’s, well, ugly. But I like it just fine. The access off I-275 is easy and there’s plenty of parking (believe it or not, we found an on-street spot right on Central Avenue, a stone’s throw from the ballpark). There’s plenty of lot parking around the field that costs around $10.

The access into and out of the Trop is easy. Once inside, ushers and other workers are always nodding and smiling at you. Best of all, it is always 72 degrees inside, and it never rains. In west-central Florida it’s usually in the mid-90s at game time during the summer, and rain is pretty common in the late afternoon and early evening, so that dome over the stadium comes in handy, even if true baseball fans long for green grass and blue skies.

The Rays management floated an idea for a new outdoor stadium on the water on downtown St. Pete last year. But with no parking (fans would have had to use existing downtown parking garages and then walk several blocks to the stadium) and not very good access for traffic, the reaction was lukewarm at best.

Anyway… this part of Florida is a great place for sports fans. We have the Rays in St. Pete (remember, they went to the World Series last year) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who play in Raymond James Stadium across the bay in Tampa and who always put a good team on the field. One doesn’t think immediately about hockey and Tampa Bay at the same time, but we have an NHL team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who play in a beautiful facility over in Tampa. We don’t have NBA basketball,  but you can still satisfy that urge if you don’t mind driving an hour and a half over to Orlando.

If you are a college football fan, Florida is heaven. The University of South Florida (in Tampa) has a great team, and you already know about the University of Florida and Florida State.

Want more? Spring training and Grapefruit League baseball, right here in North Pinellas County; great college baseball, too.

I took the picture at the top of this post from a box behind home plate. We had a great time, even though the Rays lost to the White Sox, and even in spite of the flat tire.

Tags: baseball, pinellas county, real estate, sports

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 5:10 am and is filed under St. Petersburg, things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply