Though relatively new in the professional league, the area, and specifically St. Petersburg, has had a long history of professional baseball behind it. The history goes back to as early as 1913, when the Chicago Cubs made the city of Tampa, their spring training site. The Boston Braves made St. Petersburg its spring training site in 1922.

Since then, the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators, and the New York Yankees, have had their spring training at Tampa Bay. St. Petersburg has been the spring training home for the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Braves, New York Giants, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Browns, and St. Louis Cardinals. Currently, the Devil Rays call St. Petersburg its home ground. This is a total of nine profesional baseball teams.

Bringing MLB To Tampa Bay

The Florida area is rich in baseball tradition. The city entered the Class D Florida State League (FSL) – a minor league - in 1919, and was followed by St. Petersburg in 1920.

The area tried to acquire a major league baseball team in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners were considering moving to either Tampa or St. Petersburg, but they never did.

To lure an MLB team to the area, the Tropicana Field, then known as the Florida Suncoast Dome, was built in St. Petersburg in 1990. It was expected in 1992, that Bob Lurie, the owner of the San Francisco Giants, would sell his team to a Tampa Bay-based group of investors, but the team was sold to a group that kept the team in San Francisco, instead.

However, the area was awarded a team in the new expansion on March 9. 1995, with play scheduled to start in 1998. This was the birth of the Devil Rays. In the intervening period, during the build up of the team, the Devil Rays acquired 35 players, including players, such as Tony Saunders from the Florida Marlins, Kevin Stocker from the Philadelphia Phillies, and among others - Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, and Wilson Alvarez.

The Devil Rays lost their first game, 11-6, to the Detroit Tigers, on March 31, 1998 in front of their home crowd of 45,369 fans at the Tropicana Field. However, Wade Boggs hit the team’s first home run that day.

The Devil Rays have not won any MLB titles, and have neither appeared in any playoffs.