Blog about my Ballparking Trips and reviews.

Monday, July 20, 2020

Joker Marchant Stadium

Detroit Tigers, Spring Training
Lakeland Flying Tigers, Florida State League

8/10

The slightly late, such as myself, file in.

The recently renovated stadium had a decent crowd that day.

A somewhat overcast day, but still a good day for baseball.

I started my 2018 trip here. It was a mixture of the very end of spring training, combined with some NHL venues, and getting the new Atlanta park, as well as Baltimore and Cincinnati off my list. On this particular day, I started in southern Georgia, drove here, then drove into Tampa for a Lightning game after. I ended up getting held up on the way down, so showed up in the 2nd inning or so.

This place opened in 1966 and has undergone two complete renovations, with the last one being done for spring training 2017. It hosts the Tigers Grapefruit League games and Flying Tigers high A the remainder of the year. On the whole, I found it to be a pretty decent home for the Tigers spring training, probably above average, but not much else It's tough to comment on the renovations without seeing the before product myself, so I went and found some at Ballpark Reviews here. An entire office building has been added in right field, plus a new scoreboard that's to MLB standards. Another addition was the restless fan's favourite, the wrap-around concourse. I'd hazard a guess that the player's amenities are much improved as well. The atmosphere was nothing remarkable either way, the game was a low-scoring affair with Tampa Bay that ended in a 2-2 tie.

I would definitely come back for another game here, but not before getting the last few I haven't seen in first. I'd give it an 8, without remembering a whole ton about it, because that's what it presents as. I don't think the Lakeland minor league club is in danger of being pulled, but we'll see what happens on that. Not a scientific process here sometimes....

Linescore
2018-03-26
                      123    456  789  RHE
Tampa Bay      200   000   000  250
Detroit             001   001   000  281
Temp: 82F  Time: 2:30   Att: 6,662

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