Rays Sending Opening Day Items to Baseball Hall of Fame for Display
The Tampa Bay Rays are operating under unique circumstances this year and the Baseball Hall of Fame wants to spotlight it.
Recently, the Rays announced that the Hall asked for some memorabilia from their home opener on March 28 against the Colorado Rockies.
The opener was not held at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the Rays have played since they were an expansion team. Tampa Bay played its opener at George M. Steinbrenner Field, which is the home of the New York Yankees’ Class A affiliate, the Tampa Tarpons.
The Rays are playing there this season due to damage sustained on the roof at Tropicana Field after Hurricane Milton made the stadium unplayable.
It isn’t often that Major League teams make their home at a minor league stadium for a season, much less the home minor league stadium of a division rival. But that’s the situation Tampa Bay has found itself in this season.
The Rays highlighted the items send to the Hall, in Cooperstown, N.Y., on social media.
These Opening Day items are headed to the @baseballhall!
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) April 8, 2025
To commemorate the day, we sent some memorabilia to Cooperstown, including: a Pepiot-pitched ball, a scan of a dugout lineup card, a printed ticket, an 'Inside Pitch' game day program and scorecards from Dewayne Staats,… pic.twitter.com/E9IseDF8B1
Tampa Bay is starting a 13-game homestand this week against the Los Angeles Angels.
The Rays have been seeking a new stadium situation in the Tampa-St. Pete area for more than a decade. On several occasions, plans have been drawn up and released to the public, but to this point no agreement has been reached.
The Rays pulling out of the $1.3 billion ballpark plan in mid-March, which brought into question the future of the franchise in the area.
Tropicana Field will get a new roof, courtesy of a $22.5 million allocation from St. Petersburg City Council. The hope is that it will be ready for the 2026 regular season.
The Rays are committed to Tropicana Field through 2028. It’s not clear what the Rays will do after that, but MLB has made it clear it wants the stadium situation improved.
While Tampa Bay made it their home in 1996 when it played its first season, the stadium opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome. Briefly, a sale of the San Francisco Giants would have moved the team to Tampa Bay before National League owners opted not to approve the sale.
The dome has hosted the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, college football games and WWE events. It also hosted the 1999 Final Four but hasn’t hosted it since.
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Matthew Postins is an award-winning sports journalist who covers MLB and College Sports for On SI. He also covers the Big 12 for HeartlandCollegeSports.com.