Jorge CastilloMar 28, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
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- ESPN baseball reporter. Lined the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Submit earlier than masking the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Occasions from 2018 to 2024.
TAMPA, Fla. — Probably the most distinctive transformation of a ballpark in Primary League Baseball historical past introduced in earnest Sunday at 5 p.m.
That used to be when the Tampa Bay Rays, after taking part in a Grapefruit League sport towards the New York Yankees because the visiting crew, had been passed the keys to George M. Steinbrenner Box, which would be the Rays’ place of abode for the 2025 season. It all started an extraordinary four-day challenge to make their rival crew’s stadium feel and appear like their very own earlier than Friday’s sold-out season opener towards the Colorado Rockies.
The Rays will play their complete 81-game house agenda at Steinbrenner Box this season as a result of in October, Typhoon Milton tore via Tropicana Box, their house around the bay in St. Petersburg since their inaugural season in 1998. Winds that reached 120 mph shredded chunks of the development’s fiberglass roof. The wear and tear used to be deemed too intensive to fix in time to play baseball in 2025.
Changing Steinbrenner Box — the house of the Yankees each and every spring, and in their Unmarried-A associate Tampa Tarpons, since 1996 — used to be a large endeavor. MLB driven again the Rays’ house opener from Thursday to Friday, giving the group an additional day to arrange. Nonetheless, greater than 80 Rays personnel individuals and greater than 50 contractors from 5 corporations contributed across the clock. The plan incorporated rebranding the valuables with greater than 3,000 indicators, giant and small, sufficient to stretch a mile if laid out finish to finish.
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The Rays had been unfastened to repaint, however, in a unprecedented smash for the franchise all through the upheaval, a lot portray wasn’t vital since the Yankees’ military blue pantone (PMS 289 C) isn’t a long way from the Rays’ military blue (PMS 648 C). There used to be something explicitly off limits all through the ballpark makeover: the 600-pound bronze statue of George Steinbrenner, the past due Yankees proprietor, status on a marble pedestal by way of the primary front.
The paintings lined each and every corner and cranny, obtrusive and difficult to understand, from the house clubhouse, which used to be open to the Rays beginning Monday at 4:30 p.m., to the 2 crew shops at the assets to the huge “Y-A-N-Ok-E-E-S” lettering above the right- and left-field stands. There have been cranes and scissor lifts and cameras to report a time-lapse video of one thing that hasn’t ever been executed: a significant league crew shifting out of a stadium after spring coaching and some other one shifting into it for the summer season.
“We are not going to get each and every unmarried pinstripe long past within the subsequent 4 days and that is the reason now not in point of fact the purpose,” Rays leader trade officer Invoice Walsh mentioned Sunday, in a while after the Rays got the golf green gentle to take over the ballpark. “The purpose is to have this position really feel — when you find yourself strolling round, when you find yourself sitting within the seating bowl — to really feel like that is the house of the Rays.”
Above all, Walsh famous, is making the stadium really feel like house for the avid gamers.
On Sunday, they performed as the street crew towards the Yankees. On Wednesday, not up to 72 hours later, avid gamers walked into the house clubhouse for the primary time forward of a crew exercise. That gave them 48 hours to change into acclimated to their new atmosphere after calling Port Charlotte, 90 mins south, house for the former six weeks. Rays supervisor Kevin Money did not be expecting a hard transition for a crew taking a look ahead to the tip of the spring coaching grind and taking part in video games that depend.
“I imply, getting out of Port Charlotte,” Money joked, “they are going to take f—ing the rest.”
Indicators of trade at Steinbrenner Box because the “Y-A-N-Ok-E-E-S” lettering above the stands in left and appropriate used to be changed with “R-A-Y-S” this week. Jorge Castillo/ESPN
PLAYING A FULL season within the spring house of a department rival qualifies as not up to preferrred. More than one choices within the space had been regarded as. Steinbrenner Box used to be deemed probably the most major-league-ready selection. A one-year deal between the Rays and Yankees used to be struck in November giving the Rays full-time use of the stadium and New York greater than $15 million in go back.
Steinbrenner Box used to be already present process the general segment of a considerable renovation to participant and personnel amenities with well being and wellness upgrades that come with a two-story weight room, a kitchen with a devoted personnel and a avid gamers’ living room with an arcade.
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The mission — which started final offseason with the renovation of the house clubhouse — made the stadium extra of a have compatibility for the Rays, past its handy location. Extra paintings used to be required to convey the development as much as MLB regular-season requirements, together with reworking the visiting clubhouse and enhancements to cabling and broadcast infrastructure.
The Tarpons will play their house video games at a area subsequent to the stadium that used to be upgraded with lighting and seating for 1,000 other people. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred estimated all of the operation would value $50 million.
“A gentleman from the Yankees mentioned this in certainly one of our first conferences: ‘We won’t root for you at the area, however we will root so that you can have a area,'” Walsh recalled. “We simply respect the collaborative spirit that they in point of fact put forth right here.”
Nonetheless, Steinbrenner Box seats simply 11,026. The Rays ranked twenty eighth in attendance around the majors final season, however their 16,515 reasonable used to be nonetheless considerably upper than their new house’s capability.Additional complicating the placement, the group had already renewed their season-ticket base for Tropicana Box in 2025 by way of September.
Enjoying in an open-air stadium all through a Florida summer season can be a topic, too, between the unforgiving warmth and dependable rain. MLB moved first-pitch occasions beginning in June again from 7:05 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. and gave the Rays extra house video games earlier than June. Tampa Bay will play 19 of its first 22 video games at house and 37 of its first 54 video games there.
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To arrange for the inevitable parts, director of particular tasks and area operations Dan Moeller had six of the Rays’ 8 full-time groundskeepers paintings Yankees Grapefruit League house video games along the Yankees’ workforce, whilst two stayed at the back of to take care of the crew’s 85 acres round Tropicana Box.
Moeller mentioned his workforce helped pull out the tarp two times this spring, just right apply for when the video games subject. Tropicana Box, unsurprisingly, hasn’t ever housed a tarp. The primary one in franchise historical past could have a Budweiser brand on what is key promoting actual property.
The paintings would possibly not be completely international to Moeller and his grounds workforce. They take care of the crew’s six herbal fields in Port Charlotte. Moeller, who used to be employed by way of the franchise in 1997, additionally in the past labored at the crew’s 5 out of doors fields, together with Al Lang Stadium, at their former spring coaching complicated in St. Petersburg via 2008.
“I am not moderately certain what to anticipate,” Moeller mentioned. “However we were given the most productive grounds workforce within the predominant leagues and we will take care of no matter’s thrown at us. My guys are up for the duty, and they are enthusiastic about it.”
The Rays did not need to repaint the clubhouse — however they did wish to quilt a large gentle fixture with a Yankees brand on it. See above for the outcome. Courtesy/@RaysBaseball/X
VETERAN SECOND BASEMAN Brandon Lowe regarded as Sunday’s sport towards the Yankees at Steinbrenner Box extra essential than an ordinary exhibition. For him, it used to be a chance to change into extra acquainted with the ballpark. With floor balls at the taking part in floor. With the background from the batter’s field.
“I think like baseball avid gamers are very resilient and excellent at adapting to adjustments,” mentioned Lowe, who lives in Tampa and could have his travel to paintings reduce considerably. (His supervisor is not so fortunate — Money, who lives in St. Petersburg, mentioned his will building up from simply 8 mins to twenty-five.)
The afternoon served as a reminder that it wasn’t house moderately but. The Rays heard a smattering of cheers, however the loudest ones had been for Aaron Pass judgement on and the Yankees for a sport that led to a tie and doubled as a get dressed practice session for the group.
Up within the 29-seat press field, the Rays’ public family members crew attempted to determine how it will maintain huge teams of media all through the steady season and doubtlessly past, whilst TV and radio broadcast groups tailored themselves to their new place of work.
One drawback they encountered: Broadcasters cannot see the bullpens from the cubicles. The Rays must set up new digital camera feeds.
Ryan Bass, the crew’s sideline reporter for Fanduel Sports activities Community Solar, famous there continuously may not be enough space for him to sit down within the digital camera wells subsequent to the dugouts all through video games as he typically does.
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“From our standpoint, doing TV every and each day, we were given to determine, all through the process the season, what the most productive way is for ensuring we convey Rays baseball to enthusiasts,” Bass mentioned earlier than Sunday’s sport. “I feel from what you spot March twenty eighth to what you spot April twenty seventh, can be utterly other simply from being in point of fact ready to get a really feel with such a lot of house video games to start out the yr.”
After the sport, Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone completed packing up his workplace and left it for Money.
“I am getting out of right here these days,” Boone mentioned with a grin, “so I will go away him one thing.”
For the Rays, the tempo used to be frenetic. Sunday night, when reached by way of telephone for an interview simply 90 mins after Tampa Bay used to be given clearance to start out the makeover, Walsh kindly requested if he may name again in 5 mins.
“Sorry,” he mentioned, “I am placing up an indication.”
Round him, the outfield partitions had been being power-washed for commercial installations on Monday, sod that includes commercials from Yankees sponsors used to be being reduce out and changed, one of the vital crew shops used to be being stocked with Rays equipment, and, with assist from Walsh, indicators had been going up all over.
The following morning, the Yankees packed and moved out of the house clubhouse forward of a flight to Miami, emptying the room for the following tenants.
As they did so, Yankees reliever Scott Effross requested a clubhouse attendant a query that used to be on everyone’s minds this spring: What are the Rays going to do with the enormous Yankees brand gentle fixture suspended from the ceiling in the course of the room?
The solution, printed Wednesday, used to be masking it with a Rays-branded field. Close by, a nonslip, Rays-branded rug hid tiling resulting in the showers with “The Bronx” spelled out on it.Down the corridor, Rays emblems changed Yankees emblems on coaching tables and whirlpool tiles. Within the press field, pictures of former Rays and framed media information covers had been hung.
Out of doors, past the center-field wall, at the facade dealing with Dale Mabry Freeway, a billboard used to be fastened that includes the group’s “Rays Up” tagline, to let each and every automobile dashing previous the ballpark know George M. Steinbrenner Box is the house of the Rays.
On the backside, alternatively, is a reminder that it is just transient:
“THANK YOU, YANKEES!”
