spring-training: ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Progress Energy Park, home of Al Lang Field, was built in 1947 for a cost of $300,000. Since then, it has hosted spring training every year. The current occupants of the stadium are the Tampa Bay Rays, but it is their last season. Rays manager Joe Maddon remembers hitchhiking to the famed stadium for his first visit in 1973. He watched the Cardinals play the Mets. “It was slightly religious,” he says of the experience.
