{"id":668353,"date":"2026-04-07T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668353\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:00:16","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-make-return-to-tropicana-field-after-roof-repairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/668353\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays make return to Tropicana Field after roof repairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays made their return to Tropicana Field by beating the Cubs 6\u20134, marking MLB\u2019s return to downtown St. Petersburg Monday and celebrating repairs to the Trop, the team\u2019s home for the previous 28 seasons, as well as the \u201cstrength and resiliency of the Tampa Bay community.\u201d Pre-game ceremonies included a \u201cpresentation of the flag by roof repairers, first responders and team staff who worked on the project,\u201d a national anthem by country singer Eric Church and first pitches by St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch and Tampa Bay Mayor Jane Castor. The celebration with the community continued after the game, as Rays lead owners Patrick Zalupski and Bill Cosgrove, CEO Ken Babby and team ambassador Brett Phillips took Gov. Ron DeSantis to nearby Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar & Grill and \u201cbought a beer for everyone there.\u201d Players talked pre-game about improvements to their clubhouse and expansion of the weight room, but they \u201cseemed most excited,\u201d after playing last season outdoors at Tampa\u2019s Steinbrenner Field in front at 10,000, \u201cabout having 25,000 fans cheering for them\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 4\/6<\/a>).<\/p>\n

As the Rays work to solidify the team\u2019s future with a new stadium in Tampa, the new owners \u201cwanted to make Monday\u2019s reopening of Tropicana Field\u202fabout the past.\u201d Some of the changes \u201cincluded increased acknowledgment of their two World Series teams, as photos on the main concourse walls are now primarily from the 2008 and 2020 seasons.\u201d And in including members of the stadium repair crew, first responders and team staff involved in the project as part of the on-field ceremonies, the Rays \u201caddressed the more recent history of the Tampa Bay community\u2019s response to the back-to-back 2024 hurricanes.\u201d DeSantis \u201cwas on the field pre-game\u201d and stayed for the game (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 4\/6<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Welch and Castor \u201cstepped up to home plate and threw out ceremonial pitches\u201d at Tropicana Field for the first time in 561 days. Above them in the owner\u2019s suite hovered DeSantis, who \u201csupports a plan to build a stadium in Tampa on Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry campus.\u201d With him stood Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan and Tampa City Council Chair Alan Clendenin, both of whom are \u201cworking to get\u202fthat done.\u201d The political showing Monday \u201coffered reminders of the past, present — and possible future — lurking over a team that spent almost 20 years in search of any other place to call home.\u201d For the fans of what \u201clikely will be the team\u2019s lone home sellout for the season, at least, baseball was back at the Trop\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 4\/6<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays made their return to Tropicana Field by beating the Cubs 6\u20134, marking MLB\u2019s return to downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-668353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-rays","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116363553960759668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}