Tampa Bay's Dome Days: How Long Will the Rays Have To Endure the Trop?

If you're a Rays fan, and you watched last night's lackluster opener against Baltimore, you would've noticed that the seats inside Tropicana Field were full of fired-up fans. Hopefully you got a good look at the sell-out crowd, because you may not see it like that for the rest of the year.

Whether by poor economy, bad location or the convenience of watching a game in HD in the comforts of home, the seats at the Trop this year will once again be unoccupied for the majority of the time.

With that said, it proves the point that the worst thing about the Tampa Bay Rays, besides the Trop, is that they're not in Tampa Bay. St. Petersburg is not a great location for the dome; we've all known that for quite sometime.

So how much longer will the Rays have to play in the oversized warehouse of a dome known as the "Trop"? If Bill Foster has his way, it'll be much longer than anyone expects.

If you're wondering, Foster is the mayor of St. Pete, and the doom to any stadium plans owner Stu Sternberg has. Since the Vince Naimoli (first Rays owner) days, nothing has gone right for the (Devil) Rays' stadium hopes. They signed a lease to stay in St. Pete till 2027. Yes, 2027!

So Foster thinks they should honor the lease. But does he really think that any team would want to stay that long in the same building? It's not Fenway or Yankee Stadium, or Wrigley. Or is it? He was quoted in the Tampa Tribune as saying, "I call the (catwalk) rings 'Wrigley's Ivy'—it's an absolute beautiful facility..."

Really? The catwalks remind you of Wrigley's Ivy? One goes right along with America's pastime, and the other needs to go as time continues to pass. Foster is ether stupid or stubborn. At one point I thought the latter, but now I'm thinking the other. We'll just say both.

The casual Rays fan who's never been to another MLB park may say he doesn't mind the Trop. Personally, it grows on you a bit, albeit like a wart. But if you've ever had the chance of being at other major league facilities, you would be able to tell many differences—where the Trop falls short.

So the Rays are caught in the trap of Foster, who doesn't want to see Sternberg move the team to Tampa or anywhere in Hillsborough County. He'd probably rather them move to Las Vegas or Charlotte.

Foster did give the Rays permission to build somewhere else in Pinellas County, but that would sort of defeat the purpose. There isn't a great spot to build anywhere down there where more fans could easily reach the park.

The truth is there are plenty of money hoops to jump through—from how much the city or state would spend, how much Sternberg could fork out and having certain taxes to cover the rest of the costs.

But in St. Pete, things will only get worse. Tampa is 21st out of 30 teams in attendance, which is downright awful for a team that won the AL East last year. Commissioner Bud Selig has attempted to step in and help move the situation along, just to have his and Sternberg's ideas for a new stadium shot down time after time by Foster.

Depending on how much Hillsborough County taxpayers have to dish out, the move to Tampa would help the businesses around the stadium, and would help the team tremendously, even in the tough economic times.

But one thing is clear—nothing is going to change with the Rays in St. Pete. The question of how long they'll be there remains unanswered. Until then, we'll continue to look up at the "Wrigley-like" structures up on the ceiling. Bill Foster must have been as high as the catwalks.