St. Petersburg, Florida, is home to one of the best teams in the American League East. The Rays play out of Tropicana Field, which opened as the Florida Suncoast Dome in 1990, and was called the ThunderDome as the home of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning from 1993 to 1996. It has a current capacity of 25,000, which can be expanded to 42,735. The Rays are managed by Kevin Cash, who led Tampa to 90-win seasons in 2018, 2019 and 2021. From 1998 to 2007, the Rays were known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Tampa Bay Rays History

The Tampa Bay area came close several times to attracting a Major League Baseball franchise before finally winning an expansion team in 1995, to start playing in the 1998 season, including a tentative deal which had future Rays owner Vince Naimoli nearly purchasing the San Francisco Giants in 1992. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays first took to the field in 1998, with Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs returning to his native Tampa for his final two seasons. In August 1999, Boggs became the first player to record a home run on his 3,000th hit.

The Devil Rays had growing pains through their first decade, but a core of players including Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, David Price and Scott Kazmir turned Tampa into a contender, and behind manager Joe Maddon, they won their first American League East title in 2008. The Rays defeated the Chicago White Sox and their rival Boston Red Sox in the ALDS and ALCS before falling to the Philadelphia Phillies four games to one in the World Series. In 2011, the Rays clinched the AL Wild Card in spectacular fashion, coming back from an 8th-inning 7-0 deficit against the New York Yankees in the final game of the season to tie in the 9th inning with a Dan Johnson home run, followed by Evan Longoria's legendary walk-off home run. In 2019, the Rays made their fifth playoff appearance since 2008, defeating the Oakland Athletics in the Wild Card game before losing three games to two against the Houston Astros in the ALDS.