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Al Lang Stadium
Al Lang Stadium is a 7,500-seat sports stadium along the waterfront of downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, which was used almost exclusively as a baseball park for over 60 years. Since 2011, it has been the home pitch of the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the USL Championship soccer league.
Al Lang Stadium was built in 1947 at the site of an older facility known as St. Petersburg Athletic Park. It is named in honor of Al Lang, a former mayor of St. Petersburg who was instrumental in bringing minor league and spring training baseball to the city in the early 20th century. Al Lang Stadium was the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball from 1948 until 1997, with other teams occasionally sharing use of the facility for a few seasons at a time. During the summer, the ballpark was the home field for the Cardinal's minor league franchise in the Florida State League. The Cardinals moved out in 1998, when St. Petersburg gained their own MLB team and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays used Al Lang Stadium as their first spring training venue and minor league ballpark. The Rays constructed a new training facility in Charlotte County a few years later, and Al Lang Stadium hosted its last spring training game in March 2008.
The stadium was the site of exhibition and amateur baseball for the next few years until the Tampa Bay Rowdies moved to St. Petersburg from Tampa in 2011. It was incrementally modified into a soccer venue over each of the following off-seasons until October 2014, when the club and the city signed an agreement giving the team more control of the facility, and more extensive renovations were undertaken to expand seating on both sides of the pitch and improve the fan experience. Though former Rowdies' majority owner Bill Edwards proposed expanding the stadium's capacity to 18,000 seats as part of a bid to move the club into Major League Soccer (MLS), the plans were not realized. In 2018, Edwards sold the club to the Tampa Bay Rays ownership group in a deal which also transferred control of Al Lang Stadium.
Professional baseball grew throughout the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, and clubs sought additional facilities to accommodate their spring training. Al Lang, a businessman in St. Petersburg, saw a huge potential to attract northeastern teams to his city to take advantage of the warm weather during the early months of the year. Lang and city officials created an incentives package that covered teams' travel expenses and other amenities, which drew in the city's first spring training tenant, the St. Louis Browns, in 1914. The club trained at Coffee Pot Park, a small ballpark located beside Coffee Pot bayou about a mile north of the current site of Al Lang Stadium. Subsequently, other Major League Baseball clubs such as the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees came to St. Petersburg for spring training, and Lang continued promoting the city when he was elected Mayor of St. Petersburg in 1916. After his term, Lang devoted his life to building a successful connection between Florida and baseball, and was instrumental in marketing St. Petersburg as a desirable sports site.
With Al Lang's support, the city replaced Coffee Pot Park with St. Petersburg Athletic Park (also known as Waterfront Park) on the present site of Al Lang Stadium in 1923. It served as the spring training home for Major League Baseball teams the Boston Braves and the New York Yankees until after World War II, hosting baseball greats such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial.
In 1947, the city of St. Petersburg demolished Waterfront Park and constructed a modern baseball park on the same site. It was named Al Lang Stadium in honor of his many years of service to the city and his continual promotion of baseball in the area. The St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees shared the new ballpark in its first spring training season.
The stadium underwent a major reconstruction in 1976, expanding its capacity to 7,227.[better source needed] It was renovated again in 1996; the project cost $640,117 and included disability accommodations.[better source needed] When the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays began using the park for spring training in 1998, local utility Florida Power purchased the park's naming rights for $150,000 per year, and the city rechristened it Florida Power Park at Al Lang Field. When Florida Power was acquired by Progress Energy in 2003, the stadium's name was changed to Progress Energy Park. The naming rights agreement expired in 2011, and the facility's name reverted to Al Lang Stadium.
Al Lang Stadium's grandstand faces the southeast, giving almost every seat a view of the St. Petersburg harbor and Tampa Bay beyond the left field wall. The stadium is constructed primarily of reinforced concrete, and the public portions of the facility include very few enclosed and air conditioned areas. A unique concrete cantilevered overhang shades many of the grandstand seats from the afternoon sun, and the stadium's waterfront location is often cooled by a sea breeze. During the 2015 renovation, the Rowdies replaced all of the seats in the grandstand, refreshed fan areas under the grandstand, and extensively updated many of the club and gameday operation areas. In addition, a portion of the outfield wall was removed and two banks of uncovered bleachers installed in its place, adding several hundred seats on the sideline of the soccer pitch opposite the grandstand.
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Al Lang Stadium
Al Lang Stadium is a 7,500-seat sports stadium along the waterfront of downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, which was used almost exclusively as a baseball park for over 60 years. Since 2011, it has been the home pitch of the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the USL Championship soccer league.
Al Lang Stadium was built in 1947 at the site of an older facility known as St. Petersburg Athletic Park. It is named in honor of Al Lang, a former mayor of St. Petersburg who was instrumental in bringing minor league and spring training baseball to the city in the early 20th century. Al Lang Stadium was the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball from 1948 until 1997, with other teams occasionally sharing use of the facility for a few seasons at a time. During the summer, the ballpark was the home field for the Cardinal's minor league franchise in the Florida State League. The Cardinals moved out in 1998, when St. Petersburg gained their own MLB team and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays used Al Lang Stadium as their first spring training venue and minor league ballpark. The Rays constructed a new training facility in Charlotte County a few years later, and Al Lang Stadium hosted its last spring training game in March 2008.
The stadium was the site of exhibition and amateur baseball for the next few years until the Tampa Bay Rowdies moved to St. Petersburg from Tampa in 2011. It was incrementally modified into a soccer venue over each of the following off-seasons until October 2014, when the club and the city signed an agreement giving the team more control of the facility, and more extensive renovations were undertaken to expand seating on both sides of the pitch and improve the fan experience. Though former Rowdies' majority owner Bill Edwards proposed expanding the stadium's capacity to 18,000 seats as part of a bid to move the club into Major League Soccer (MLS), the plans were not realized. In 2018, Edwards sold the club to the Tampa Bay Rays ownership group in a deal which also transferred control of Al Lang Stadium.
Professional baseball grew throughout the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, and clubs sought additional facilities to accommodate their spring training. Al Lang, a businessman in St. Petersburg, saw a huge potential to attract northeastern teams to his city to take advantage of the warm weather during the early months of the year. Lang and city officials created an incentives package that covered teams' travel expenses and other amenities, which drew in the city's first spring training tenant, the St. Louis Browns, in 1914. The club trained at Coffee Pot Park, a small ballpark located beside Coffee Pot bayou about a mile north of the current site of Al Lang Stadium. Subsequently, other Major League Baseball clubs such as the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees came to St. Petersburg for spring training, and Lang continued promoting the city when he was elected Mayor of St. Petersburg in 1916. After his term, Lang devoted his life to building a successful connection between Florida and baseball, and was instrumental in marketing St. Petersburg as a desirable sports site.
With Al Lang's support, the city replaced Coffee Pot Park with St. Petersburg Athletic Park (also known as Waterfront Park) on the present site of Al Lang Stadium in 1923. It served as the spring training home for Major League Baseball teams the Boston Braves and the New York Yankees until after World War II, hosting baseball greats such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial.
In 1947, the city of St. Petersburg demolished Waterfront Park and constructed a modern baseball park on the same site. It was named Al Lang Stadium in honor of his many years of service to the city and his continual promotion of baseball in the area. The St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees shared the new ballpark in its first spring training season.
The stadium underwent a major reconstruction in 1976, expanding its capacity to 7,227.[better source needed] It was renovated again in 1996; the project cost $640,117 and included disability accommodations.[better source needed] When the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays began using the park for spring training in 1998, local utility Florida Power purchased the park's naming rights for $150,000 per year, and the city rechristened it Florida Power Park at Al Lang Field. When Florida Power was acquired by Progress Energy in 2003, the stadium's name was changed to Progress Energy Park. The naming rights agreement expired in 2011, and the facility's name reverted to Al Lang Stadium.
Al Lang Stadium's grandstand faces the southeast, giving almost every seat a view of the St. Petersburg harbor and Tampa Bay beyond the left field wall. The stadium is constructed primarily of reinforced concrete, and the public portions of the facility include very few enclosed and air conditioned areas. A unique concrete cantilevered overhang shades many of the grandstand seats from the afternoon sun, and the stadium's waterfront location is often cooled by a sea breeze. During the 2015 renovation, the Rowdies replaced all of the seats in the grandstand, refreshed fan areas under the grandstand, and extensively updated many of the club and gameday operation areas. In addition, a portion of the outfield wall was removed and two banks of uncovered bleachers installed in its place, adding several hundred seats on the sideline of the soccer pitch opposite the grandstand.
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