Tampa’s baseball legacy

Baseball has been part of Tampa’s history as early as the early 1880s, and the entire region has enjoyed playing and watching the game ever since. Baseball played during its formative years in Tampa consisted of teams of soldiers from Fort Brooke and local young men who were infatuated with the game that was sweeping the nation.

By the early 1910s, professional ball clubs began traveling south before the season started to work out and play exhibition games between each other and with semi-pro and college teams. The first team to come to the Tampa Bay area was the Chicago Cubs in 1913. The team trained at Plant Field, next to the Tampa Bay Hotel (now the University of Tampa). The newspapers quickly identified the Cubs as Tampa’s springtime team, referring to the Chicago squad as “our Cubs” during the regular baseball season.

What became known as Spring Training and the Grapefruit League continued and spread throughout the Tampa Bay area and the state. The Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and several other clubs trained in cities in the region for decades, with several still doing so today.

This weekly Sunday feature is published in the Tampa Bay Times. Follow along and keep exploring with @TampaBayHistory and TampaBayHistoryCenter.org/blog.