By Jamal Thalji, Times Staff Writer
Monday, October 4, 2010
ST. PETERSBURG — Playoff baseball is already here. Now international baseball is on its way.
Mayor Bill Foster announced Monday that national teams from Australia, Canada and the Netherlands will compete at Al Lang Field starting in 2011.
The St. Petersburg International Baseball program is the first part of the mayor's bid to make the city a year-round baseball destination.
"This just adds a baseball flavor year-round," the mayor said.
Those three teams and possible a fourth — the mayor said he is in serious negotiations with a team from South Korea — would train in St. Petersburg and play each other in a spring league.
They would use Al Lang Field at Progress Energy Park to play exhibition games and then train at the Walter Fuller Baseball Complex and possibly at Huggins-Stengel Field as well.
The Tampa Bay Rays used Al Lang and the baseball complex in the spring for a decade until the team moved its spring training operations to Charlotte County in 2009.
The three international teams that have committed to St. Petersburg will play a schedule of 15 to 20 games at Al Lang starting on Feb. 26, 2011, the city said.
And those teams will also play spring training exhibitions against the Tampa Bay Rays and other Major League Baseball teams, the mayor said.
The mayor's ultimate goal is to expand international baseball operations to include the fall and summer, bringing year-round baseball to St. Petersburg.
Schedule and ticket information will soon be available at www.stpete.org.
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Jamal Thalji can be reached at thalji@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.