Greg Lindberg
Sports Editor
For the next several weeks, professional baseball players from three other countries will call St. Petersburg their home plate away from home.
Teams from Canada, the Netherlands and South Korea will compete in the inaugural St. Petersburg International Baseball Series at Al Lang Field in downtown St. Petersburg. They will play a 13-game schedule from Feb. 21 to March 13 at the historic 7,227-seat stadium just blocks from the USF St. Petersburg campus.
Some games will match the international clubs against one another and against MLB and college competition. The Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays will take part in the series. In addition, some higher-level players will test teams from Penn State and St. Petersburg College. Start times for the games are currently scheduled for noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. throughout the four-week series.
This is the first of three series expected to be played at Al Lang this year. A team from Australia has agreed to compete in a summer series, while a host of games in the fall involving international players is also anticipated.
The facility has been vacant since 2008 following the Tampa Bay Rays’ final spring training there before moving to Port Charlotte. Several other major-league clubs have used the ballpark in years past, including the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Baltimore Orioles. Baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig spent many springs there getting back into the baseball groove.
St. Petersburg International Baseball, which is putting on the event through the city of St. Petersburg, is a program created by mayor Bill Foster to bring more tourism to the area and put baseball back on the field at a once-revered ballpark.
Tickets to individual games for the spring series start at $6. For additional information, visit www.stpeteinternationalbaseball.com or search for “St. Pete International Baseball” on Facebook.
