long live thunderdome

The St. Pete Times is already looking in to how to blow up Tropicana Field. Now is a good time to take a look at where the building has been.

Florida Suncoast Dome
St. Pete began construction on the giant round tent in 1986 in the *hopes that a Major League Baseball team would come to Tampa Bay. The Chicago White Sox used St. Pete and the Florida Suncoast Dome as leverage to get Chicago and the State of Illinois to replace Comiskey Park.

Florida Suncoast Dome was opened to the public on March 3, 1990, at a cost of $138 million, but still had no tenants. The Seattle Mariners were rumored to be moving there in the early 1990s, and the San Francisco Giants flirted with the area in 1992. St. Petersburg was a finalist in the MLB expansion for 1993, but they lost out to Miami and Denver.

In 1990, Davis Cup tennis was played at the dome, with a record crowd of 53,150 attending the three-day event. Later that year, 25,710 NBA fans saw the Chicago Bulls play an exhibition game against the Seattle Supersonics. In August of 1990, the largest crowd ever to visit the dome (47,000+) appeared to see the New Kids on the Block in concert. In 1991, the building got its first regular team sports tenant, the Tampa Bay Storm.

ThunderDome
After playing their first season at Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds, the Tampa Bay Lightning moved into the facility in 1993, and the venue was renamed the Thunderdome. The building was huge by NHL standards, so NHL attendance records were set between ‘93 and ‘96, including the greatest sporting event ever attended by Joel. The first-round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Regionals were held at ThunderDome in 1994.

When MLB expanded again in 1995, St. Petersburg was finally awarded a team to play at the venue. The Lightning and the Storm both moved to the Ice Palace in 1996, and Tropicana Field closed its doors in October for a 17-month, $85 million facelift.

Tropicana Field
Naming rights for the refurbished stadium were sold to Tropicana Products, who call the place Tropicana Field, and the arena re-opened when again hosting NCAA Men’s Basketball Regional and semifinal games in 1998. The first regular season baseball game took place at the park on March 31, 1998, when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays faced the Detroit Tigers, losing 11-6.

Tropicana Field also hosted the 1999 Final Four, featuring Duke, Ohio State, Michigan State and eventual-champion Connecticut, and drew capacity crowds of 40,632 and 39,113 on March 27 and 29.

Tropicana Field underwent a further $25-million facelift prior to the 2006 season, thanks to the Devil Rays. And another $10 million in improvements was added during that season. The Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall-of-Fame moved to Tropicana Field in 2006. In 2007, the team upgraded video boards, and in the offseason changed the name of the team to the Tampa Bay Rays.

*The nonsense that local baseball boosters had to deal with to get a baseball team here could fill a book. In fact, Bob Andelman wrote a book about it, “Stadium For Rent: Tampa Bay’s Quest for Baseball.” It’s a good breakdown of the entire 20+ year process, and you can find it online through independent bookseller Inkwood Books.