If we build it, will MLB come to Tampa Bay with an All-Star Game? (2024)

ST. PETERSBURG — Shouldn’t there be a carrot, by now? Shouldn’t Major League Baseball be offering to do its part by suggesting an inducement in Tampa Bay’s generation-spanning quest for a new ballpark?

Typically, that’s how these things work. Commissioner Rob Manfred made an appearance in Texas two months before voters approved extending a half-cent sales tax to fund a new stadium. Former commissioner Bud Selig did the same thing in Miami a few years earlier.

So, with summer votes looming in St. Pete and Pinellas County, where is the love for Tampa Bay?

Specifically, where is the vague — but unmistakable — hint that Tampa Bay will be awarded an All-Star Game if the new pavilion ballpark is approved at the Tropicana Field site?

It’s our turn. Of that, there is no doubt.

Tampa Bay is the only current Major League market that has never hosted baseball’s All-Star Game. Heck, Brooklyn, Montreal and Manhattan don’t even have franchises anymore and they’ve got All-Star Games in their community scrapbooks.

By the time Arlington, Atlanta and Philadelphia host the next three games, Tampa Bay will be 0-for-29 when it comes to the one All-Star Game that has actual history and appeal.

So, answer me this:

If MLB can make vague threats about Tampa Bay losing its baseball team if a stadium is not eventually approved, shouldn’t local officials be allowed to make vague threats about not providing stadium financing if an All-Star Game isn’t promised?

Regrettably, that’s how the game is played. Nobody will say it so bluntly, but the reason Tampa Bay has been snubbed all these years is because MLB has been waiting for Tropicana Field to be replaced. The All-Star game has long been used as a reward for stadium construction.

Baltimore got an All-Star Game the year after Camden Yards opened. So did Milwaukee and Miller Park. Seattle got one two years after Safeco Field debuted. Houston, Minnesota and Texas got theirs four years after stadium openings. Detroit and Pittsburgh came five years later.

There’s a pretty obvious trend going on there, so why hasn’t the commissioner’s office mentioned the possibility of the 2030 All-Star Game in the Historic Gas Plant District? Why hasn’t Manfred pointed out how plans for new hotels and an outdoor concert venue in downtown St. Pete match up with the kind of facilities needed to be an All-Star Game host?

Look, I understand it’s a fine line. The commissioner’s office doesn’t want to be accused of poking its nose in the economic interests of someone else’s community. But hasn’t MLB already done that?

Sunday will be the 20th anniversary of Selig’s first time viewing a game at Tropicana Field. (The fact that it took the former commissioner six years to finally show up is a Freudian nightmare on its own.) And Selig used that occasion in 2004 to suggest Tampa Bay was in need of a new ballpark.

So if baseball officials can help ownership by beating the drum for public assistance in building a stadium for 20 years, shouldn’t those same poohbahs have some responsibility when it comes to enticements for that investment?

If we build it, will MLB come to Tampa Bay with an All-Star Game? (1)

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It’s bad enough that Major League Baseball does not assist teams and communities in stadium construction. (The NFL, for instance, provides up to $300 million in loans for each team involved in building a new stadium through a public/private partnership.) And considering MLB owners will, theoretically, profit from increased revenues at a new ballpark in Tampa Bay, an All-Star Game seems like a bare minimum payment.

Just to be clear, getting an All-Star Game is not a reason to build a stadium. Not even close. The debates regarding the economic/cultural/marketing advantages of having a Major League team in town are a separate issue and, along those lines, the question of public subsidies are ongoing with the St. Petersburg City Council and Pinellas County Commission.

But that doesn’t mean MLB does not play a minor role in this saga, particularly with local politicians on the verge of historic votes.

At this point, we should have already gotten a kumbaya-style affirmation from Manfred or other MLB officials. We should have gotten assurances that the league is completely on board with the Rays’ vision for a new ballpark at the Trop site.

We should have at least gotten a nudge/nudge, wink/wink assurance that a new stadium could mean an All-Star Game is right around the corner.

Left out

Tampa Bay is the only current MLB market to have never hosted an All-Star Game. Here’s a breakdown of the last ASG in each mjor-league city.

American League

East

Blue Jays 1991

Orioles 1993

Rays N/A

If we build it, will MLB come to Tampa Bay with an All-Star Game? (2024)

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