Al Lang Stadium
in Saint Petersburg, United StatesCategory: Attraction
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180 2nd Ave SE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USA Print route »
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Al Lang Stadium is a 7,500-seat sports stadium in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida that is the current home pitch of the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the United Soccer League (USL). It was built in 1947 and was used almost exclusively as a baseball park for over 60 years. Al Lang Stadium was reconstructed in 1976, and was renovated again before the Tampa Bay Devil Rays began using it as their first spring training venue in 1998. The Devil Rays / Rays were the last of a long series of Major League Baseball clubs to conduct spring training and host an affiliated minor league team at Al Lang Stadium. Before the Rays, tenants included the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, and the Baltimore Orioles, amongst others. The stadium hosted its last spring training game in 2008 and was the site of occasional amateur and exhibition baseball for the next several years.The Tampa Bay Rowdies became the primary tenant in 2011, and Al Lang Stadium was incrementally modified for use as a soccer venue for the next several off-seasons. Since October 2014, an agreement between the club and the city of St. Petersburg has made the stadium a soccer-only facility, and the Rowdies' ownership conducted an extensive renovation in early 2015. In 2016, Rowdies' majority owner Bill Edwards proposed greatly expanding the stadium's capacity to 18,000 seats as part of a bid to move his club into Major League Soccer (MLS). In May 2017, a local referendum passed authorizing the city of St. Petersburg to negotiate a long-term lease with the team to help make the project possible. In October 2018, the Rowdies were purchased by the Tampa Bay Rays, which gave the baseball club control of Al Lang Stadium through the transfer of the existing lease with the city of St. Petersburg.Al Lang Stadium 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.
