MLB assessing where Rays will play after hurricane tore stadium roof

LOS ANGELES — The Major League Players Association has yet to has yet to speak to MLB officials about where the Tampa Bay Rays might play in 2025 with Tropicana Field’s severe roof damage caused by Hurricane Milton.

“I don’t have a sense yet but diligence – formal and informal – is still being done on the ballpark itself,’ said Tony Clark said, executive director of the players association. ‘The determination is going to have to made as to whether or not adjustments to that ballpark can be made either into 2025, 2026 or later.

‘In the near term, we have to ensure that if the facility the major league players aren’t going to be playing in for 2025 isn’t a major-league ballpark, it is of major-league quality at the time the players step onto the field. All of that is in process.’

MLB would like at least a temporary home near the St. Petersburg-Tampa area to cause the least amount of disruption to players and fans.

“Depending on the facility, depending on the location of the facility, depending on how it’s going to otherwise affect the schedule,’ Clark said, “all of that’s being taken into account at the same time Tampa is being assessed.

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“Right now, formally, there’s nothing that we’ve sat down and suggested that the league has determined that they’d like go to here. At that point in time, we will have to step in and make sure that the ballpark and the standards are again major-league [quality].’

Clark, who said it’s not ideal that two of their major-league teams could be playing in minor-league facilities, also said he was pleased that MLB determined that natural grass, instead of artificial turf, will be used by the Athletics when they play their home games in Sacramento.

‘We have been vocal about the surface for awhile,’ Clark said. “So that the decision was formally made that its going to be grass, it ensures that on that issue player sentiment was part of the conversation, as it always is when it comes to health and safety. There’s still a lot of work to be done in other areas, but that was a big one.’

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