Spring Training in Tampa

Seven Major League clubs have held spring training in Tampa, according to the Tampa Bay Rays history of baseball in the region.

The Reds stand out on that list. Their two stretches add up to 54 springs, far more than any other club, and the Yankees, the current tenant, rank second. The Rays history says Major League Baseball has had a presence in the area since 1913 except for 1943-45, when World War II kept teams from traveling south, and counts Tampa as a spring site in 93 of the past 106 years. That page carries no date, so the count describes the year it was written rather than 2026.

Across the bay from Tampa, St. Petersburg drew a separate roster of nine clubs, including the Yankees in an earlier era, which is why the Yankees appear in both cities' histories. The same Rays page puts St. Petersburg's count at 82 of the past 106 years.

The Chicago Cubs brought Major League spring training to Tampa in 1913, when they moved their camp from New Orleans, according to the Rays history.

The move came out of a rivalry with St. Petersburg. The Rays history says Al Lang, a former Pittsburgh laundry owner who had moved to St. Petersburg in 1910, convinced the Cubs to leave New Orleans, only to see them choose Tampa instead. A year later Lang lured the St. Louis Browns to St. Petersburg. The first game between two Major League teams in the area followed on March 26, 1914, as the Grapefruit League took shape with a five-week schedule of exhibitions. At Plant Field, on what is now the University of Tampa campus, the host Cubs edged the Browns 3-2 despite making six errors.

The game had local roots well before 1913. A Hillsborough County history article says baseball took off in the area when Cubans arrived to work in Tampa's cigar factories in the late 1800s, many of them avid players and fans, and dates the first local team to Ybor City in 1887. The county counts 89 Major Leaguers among the professional players who began playing while growing up in Tampa and Hillsborough County.

Plant Field hosted Tampa's first Major League springs, including the 1919 Babe Ruth home run that the Rays history calls what many consider his longest.

Ruth was training in Tampa with the Boston Red Sox when, on April 4, 1919, he hit a 587-foot blast against the New York Giants at Plant Field, according to the Rays. The feat is commemorated on a plaque at the field. The distance is the figure the Rays history gives; no official measurement from 1919 is cited.

The field kept drawing clubs through the 1920s. A Burgert Brothers photograph held by the University of South Florida Libraries is catalogued as the Washington Senators playing baseball at Plant Field during spring training on March 18, 1923, with onlookers watching the team practice. That date sits inside the Senators' 1920-29 run on the Rays list.

Tampa's own professional club dates from the same era. The Rays history says Minor League Baseball began in the Tampa Bay area in 1919, when Tampa became a charter member of the Class-D Florida State League. After finishing last that first year, Tampa went 89-28 in 1920, a .745 winning percentage the Rays describe as still the best in league history.

Al Lopez Field was the baseball complex the Tampa Sports Authority took over on October 1, 1965, according to the Tampa Sports Authority timeline.

The authority itself was only months old. The timeline records that Governor Hayden Burns signed the bill creating it on May 28, 1965, and that the October takeover covered the Al Lopez Field baseball facilities plus the surrounding acreage from Columbus Drive to Buffalo Avenue and from Dale Mabry Highway to Himes Avenue. The authority ordered construction of Tampa Stadium in October 1966, and the stadium's first game was played on November 4, 1967. The cited sources do not give Al Lopez Field's opening or closing year, so this page does not state them.

The ballpark carried the name of a local son. Hillsborough County describes Al Lopez as a Tampa native and the county's first Major League Baseball player, manager and Hall of Famer. The Rays history adds that he was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1977, caught almost 2,000 Major League games, and managed the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox.

His boyhood home now holds the Tampa Baseball Museum. The county says the house was built in Ybor City in 1905, about one mile from where it stands today; the Florida Department of Transportation acquired it for a highway expansion and donated it to the Ybor City Museum Society, and it was moved in 2013 to 2003 N. 19th Street. The museum's permanent exhibitions feature 1,500 artifacts and include the area's history of hosting big league spring training, and county Historic Preservation Challenge Grant money helped restore the home and pay for exhibits.

The Yankees opened their Tampa spring home, then called Legends Field, on March 1, 1996, hosting the Cleveland Indians, according to the Tampa Sports Authority timeline.

The deal was years in the making. The timeline records a September 19, 1988 announcement that the Yankees would begin spring and winter training at the authority's complex at Himes Avenue and Columbus Drive, and September 1993 plans that included a spring training home for the club. On September 30, 1998, the authority conveyed ownership of Legends Field to Hillsborough County.

The New York Yankees describe the ballpark as a 31-acre complex built in 1996 that serves as the club's spring home and the summer home of the Tampa Tarpons, and as a year-round venue for concerts, tournaments and corporate events. It was renamed for longtime principal owner George Steinbrenner on March 27, 2008, after unanimous resolutions from the Hillsborough County Commission and the Tampa City Council. The Yankees say 2027 marks their 32nd season in Tampa.

The ballpark is at 1 Steinbrenner Drive, Tampa, FL 33614, and its contact phone is (813) 875-7753, per the Yankees. From I-275, the team's directions are to take exit 41A for North Dale Mabry Highway (US 92) and drive about 3 miles north; the general parking lot is at 3676 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The ballpark briefly had a second Major League tenant. After Hurricane Milton badly damaged Tropicana Field, the Rays announced in November 2024 that they would play the 2025 regular season at Steinbrenner Field while keeping spring training at Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte. The two clubs describe the Tarpons differently: the Yankees page calls them a Class A-Advanced affiliate, while the Rays announcement calls them Single-A.

When World War II kept Major League clubs from coming south, Tampa formed the Inter-Social League in 1943, according to the Rays history.

Crowds averaged several thousand in West Tampa and Ybor City, and the players included the fathers of future Major Leaguers Lou Piniella and Dave Magadan, the Rays history says. The same account lists three minor leagues with affiliates in the Tampa Bay area: the Florida State League (from 1919), the Southeastern League (1928-30) and the Florida International League (1946-54).

Spring and summer baseball overlapped through the Reds era. The Rays history notes that Tampa's 1961 Florida State League title team was led by Reds farmhand Pete Rose, who set a league mark with 30 triples that year that still stands by the page's account. Today the Tampa Tarpons carry on summer play at the Yankees' ballpark.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Rays history of Tampa Bay baseball and the club's November 2024 Steinbrenner Field announcement, the Tampa Sports Authority timeline, Hillsborough County's Tampa Baseball Museum article, the Yankees ballpark page and the USF Libraries Burgert Brothers record.