Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

My wife Liz and I have been enjoying going to the Tampa Bay Ray’s games at Tropicana Field for many years…sadly, they aren’t having such a great season this year. But we don’t care! Once a fan, always a fan and we support our ‘home team’ - it matters not whether they win. 

Even though Sarasota doesn’t really have our own home team now (other than the Orioles Spring Training games), baseball has been part of Sarasota’s history and lifestyle since the 1920's when the City of Sarasota wanted to bring a major league team to Sarasota and began developing Payne Park.

Once built, the new Payne Park baseball diamond met one of the stipulations of John McGraw, owner of the New York Giants, for bringing his team to Sarasota for spring training. Thus began Sarasota's continuing relationship with major league baseball. After trying to bring the Philadelphia Athletics and the New York Yankees, Sarasota got the New York Giants to hold spring training at Payne Park beginning in 1924.

After the New York Giants left in the spring of 1927, Sarasota wanted another major league team but nothing could be arranged. In 1929, the Sports Committee arranged for the Indianapolis Indians, to train at Payne Park. Having the Indians spring train at Payne Park provided much needed tourism to the Sarasota area. With the end of the land boom and the beginning of the Great Depression era, money was in short supply in both the city and county. As the Great Depression was affecting businesses all over the country, including baseball, the Indians decided to train closer to home.

The Sports Committee again took on the task of looking for another team to replace the Indians. They made arrangements with the Boston Red Sox to come train in Sarasota in the spring of 1933. The Red Sox agreed to play one season and if they approved of the playing park and conditions, they would return the following year. The Red Sox agreed to return in 1934 and continued to spring train in Sarasota until 1958. From the time Ted Williams drove up to the Sarasota Terrace Hotel in "an old jalopy" as a Boston Red Sox rookie, until the Sox concluded their spring training games in Sarasota, Williams was a popular subject in the local press and community.

The last tenant of Payne Park for spring training was the Chicago White Sox, who first arrived in 1960. After 29 years they moved to the new Ed Smith Stadium on 12th Street. Ed Smith Stadium was formerly the spring home of the Chicago White Sox (1989–1997) and the Baltimore Orioles (1991). In 1998, it replaced Plant City Stadium as the spring training home of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds remained at the facility through 2008. After Cincinnati's club moved its spring activities to Arizona, Ed Smith Stadium spent a year without major league Spring Training. From 1989 to 2009, the stadium hosted a series of Minor League Baseball teams, the Single-A Sarasota White Sox, Sarasota Red Sox, and Sarasota Reds. From 2004 until 2009, it housed the Gulf Coast League's Gulf Coast Reds. The Orioles became Ed Smith’s tenant and operator in 2010 and Liz and I have enjoyed many Spring Training games there.

Baseball is, in the truest sense, a pastime...something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably. In a world that demands so much of us and our limited time, there’s something to be said for passing it agreeably. It's timeless and nostalgic. No matter what, it makes you think of older times some way or another. Columnist George F. Will has said, “Baseball is a habit. The slowly rising crescendo of each game, the rhythm of the long season—these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions can that be said?” He’s right.

If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Sarasota, Florida or the surrounding areas, call me and I will make it happen…and maybe we can take a break go to a baseball game together! PLAY BALL!

Sources and Credits: Sarasota History Center, Wikipedia, Sarasota History Alive, Sarasota Herald Tribune, scgov.net