Tropicana Field is a stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tropicana Field has been the home of Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays (formerly the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) since 1998.

The ballpark originally began construction in 1986 in the hope that it would lure a Major League Baseball team to the Tampa Bay area.

The stadium was finished in 1990, but still had no tenants. There were rumors of the Seattle Mariners moving in the early part of the 1990s, and the San Francisco Giants came close to moving to the area. However, the sale was blocked under pressure from San Francisco officials and the then-owner of the Florida Marlins, Blockbuster Video Chairman H. Wayne Huizenga.

The Suncoast Dome did manage to gain a tenant in 1993 when the Tampa Bay Lightning made the stadium its home for three seasons. In the process, the Suncoast Dome was renamed the Thunderdome. Because of the large capacity of what was basically a park built for baseball, several NHL attendance records were set during their time there.

In 1995, the dome got a baseball team when MLB expanded to the Tampa Bay area. Changes were made to the stadium and the name, which was changed due to the sale of naming rights to Tropicana Products, thus renaming it Tropicana Field in 1996.

Home of the Tampa Bay Rays

Tropicana Field capacity: 38,437

Tropicana Field phone: 888-326-7297

Year Built: 1986

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