Description
They built the stadium before they had the team. Bob Andelman’s Stadium for Rent is the definitive chronicle of Tampa Bay’s decades-long campaign to bring big-league baseball to Florida’s west coast — first published in 1993, when the dream was still just a dream.
This deeply reported account investigates how Tampa Bay’s boosters lobbied, schemed, and sold a vision — constructing the Suncoast Dome (now Tropicana Field) before a franchise ever existed. Andelman walks readers through the saga’s twists: the flirtations with relocating franchises, the expansion wars, the San Francisco Giants scare of 1992, and the civic heartbreak in between.
Part sports history, part civic drama, Stadium for Rent remains the essential record of how the Tampa Bay Rays finally came to be. For baseball fans and students of the business of sports, it’s a fascinating look at the price cities pay for a place in the big leagues — and what the quest meant to a community’s identity.
Bob Andelman’s Stadium for Rent: Tampa Bay’s Quest for Major League Baseball is the definitive chronicle of one region’s decades-long campaign to bring big-league baseball to Florida’s west coast. First published in 1993, this deeply reported account investigates how Tampa Bay’s boosters lobbied, schemed, and sold a dream — constructing the Suncoast Dome (now Tropicana Field) before a team ever existed.
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nAndelman walks readers through the saga’s twists: the flirtations with relocating franchises, the expansion wars, the San Francisco Giants scare of 1992, and the civic heartbreak in between. Along the way, he captures what the quest meant to a community — jobs, identity, and the belief that major-league status would put Tampa Bay on the map.
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nPart sports history, part civic drama, Stadium for Rent remains the essential record of how the Tampa Bay Rays finally came to be. For baseball fans and students of the business of sports, it’s a fascinating look at the price cities pay for a place in the big leagues.
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