Charlotte Sports Park Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Charlotte Stone Crabs Class A League

Charlotte Sports Park Photo by Eileen

Charlotte Sports Park

Wow, What an amazing Ball Park – This park is huge with a really wide boardwalk around the whole park. Get there early and walk. I did. This is incredible beauty with plenty of places to stand around the whole park and places to sit on the grass on both sides. Made the complete circuit before the game.

Walking to Stadium Photo by Eileen

Boardwalk

Walked Part of the circuit for food later with others to go to the place that had the Steak and Cheese and cooked onions sandwiches out near the Tiki Hut. These were great sandwiches. The Tiki bar was full of patrons. We walked back to our seats with our sandwiches and picked up soda on the way.

Tiki Hut Before Game Photo by Eileen

Later walked around again during the seventh inning stretch. The place was full but still room for others. It is nice to be out and about during a game with so much to see and do. Even the kids have a playground with a small climbing wall. This is great for parents whose kids need a place to release energy instead of having a melt down. What a lovely Park, right?

Beautiful Ball Park Photo by Eileen

Game

Great game between the Orioles and the Rays. Lots of runs on both sides. Slides into home. Mistakes (errors) and just a good time. The 9th inning had the Rays ahead and then they gave it away to the Orioles. Not just tied but ahead. Now they went to Bat and could not pull it out.

Before Game Photo by Eileen

There were Orioles Fans in front of us and one woman was a hoot yelling and hollering for her team. That is the fun thing about Spring training. There are always a diverse group of fans because they are all in Florida from many different places or some just come to go to all the different parks in the area for Spring Training. It is fun to get out of the north to sometimes Sunny Florida and sometimes warmer temperatures. This was one of those days.

During Game Photo by Eileen

Bright sun. Good temperatures. Great Company. Cushioned seats. Lovely Stadium. Perfect!

Dugout Photo by Eileen

Regular Baseball Season

When Spring Training is over, it is time to continue with Baseball at this wonderful sports park. Watching A League Baseball is great fun because there is a lot of runs, hot dogs, beer, soda, and nice cheaper evening or afternoon out. Love the teams that play after Spring Training. They play hard in hopes of moving up into the major leagues.

Being at the Tampa Bay Rays game, I was reminded of the movie The Rookie where his dream was to move up to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays the former name of Tampa Bay Rays. Based on a true story of Jim Morris. Dennis Quaid plays Jim Morris. This type of film fills my imagination with possibilities. Believing anything is possible. Being with the actual team was like visiting the past in the present. Fun stuff, huh!

Warmup Just liked this shot Photo by Eileen

Inspirational.

We sat and listened to the band for a while after the game until we saw the cleanup crew were closing areas off.

What a great day!

It was nice to be a guest of Jennifer Huber, Tourism Public Relations Manager of the Charlotte Harbor Visitor & Convention Bureau of Port Charlotte, Florida. Thank you! Terrific Day!

Resources

• Tampa Bay Rays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bay_Rays
• Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf Islands Florida http://www.charlotteharbortravel.com/
• Charlotte Sports Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Sports_Park
• Facebook Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf Islands Florida http://www.facebook.com/CharlotteHarbor
• Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Ball Park  http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/spring_training/ballpark.jsp?c_id=tb
• Charlotte Stone Crabs schedule   http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/schedule/index.jsp?sid=t2730
• Facebook Charlotte Stone Crabs http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charlotte-Stone-Crabs/45780347374
• Twitter for Charlotte Stone Crabs http://twitter.com/stonecrabs
• The Rookie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rookie_%282002_film%29
• Charlotte Stone Crabs originally were Vero Beach Dodgers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Stone_Crabs

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Eileen Lud­wig, travel writer of Free­lance Tourist brings to the world insights about places to travel, dis­counts, Stay­ca­tions, Restau­rant Reviews, movie reviews, and fas­ci­nat­ing tibits. She is owner of three other sites: Pho­tog­ra­phy, Web Design School, and Social Media School Each are in dif­fer­ent stages of devel­op­ment and evolution.

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