Hundreds of Miles Away, Tropicana Field Still Feels Like Home
By Alex Murphy
Northern Virginia
There’s no place like home.
For Tampa Bay residents and Tampa Bay Rays fans, Tropicana Field is home.
The Trop. America's Ballpark. The Florida Suncoast Dome. The ThunderDome. Whatever you call it, the corner of 16th Street and 5th Avenue South has beckoned the call of baseball fans for the last three decades.
For me, someone who grew up 10 minutes outside of Philadelphia, my original home was the South Philadelphia Sports Complex and the Phillies. That consumed my life as a kid, but something switched inside of me that led me to this point: being a fan of a team in a place that now feels like a second home.
All the trips down to Spring Training in Clearwater, having immediate family and friends in the area, Tampa Bay always felt like a second home to me, so maybe this was fate from the beginning.
I've only been to Tropicana Field a handful of times—most recently to cover the Rays for the first time as credentialed media in July 2024—and it was everything I expected it to be and more.
There's a certain aura around this stadium that nothing can match, and much like the feeling a young baseball fan gets when seeing the field for the first time, I can say I experienced the same this past summer: walking out to see the dome, a marvel of engineering, and everything inside it.
Those three days, I felt like I belonged in what I was doing. Everything felt right, even if it was just for a weekend, and the lifelong impact that attending and covering those games had on me is immeasurable.
Whether July was the final time I'll ever be able to step into that building or if there is a chance to do it in the future, that building stands alone in the skyline of St. Petersburg, a beacon for baseball in the Tampa Bay area. And when the Rays win, it turns from a beacon to an icon. Seeing it in its current state hurts me because I know that the area is hurting with it.
Whatever happens coming up, whatever outcome this team reaches, I know in my heart of hearts that all of this was worth it. This team is worth supporting, this stadium is worth going to, and this area is worth having a team to support.
Hopefully, everyone else will realize that because I might live hundreds of miles away, but home will always be at 1 Tropicana Drive, St. Petersburg, Florida.
About Alex Murphy
Alex Murphy is a sports journalist based out of Northern Virginia and a co-founder of Rays The Roof, a group of content creators covering the Tampa Bay Rays since August 2020. Rays The Roof can be found across all podcasting platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio, and on social media (Twitter/X, Instagram & Bluesky) at @RaysTheRoofTB.