TAMPA — Joe Maddon, the longtime MLB manager who guided the Tampa Bay Rays to their first American League pennant in 2008, is pressing Hillsborough County and City of Tampa officials to approve the franchise’s new ballpark plan, calling it the culmination of more than 20 years of unfinished business.
Maddon, who managed the Rays from 2006 to 2014, wrote in a column published by the team that the new ownership group led by Patrick Zalupski, Bill Cosgrove and Ken Babby has earned the moment. Their proposal for a “Forever Home” ballpark includes a wraparound district with a new campus for Hillsborough College and mixed-use space for housing, work and entertainment — a plan Maddon called “fair and smart” that has already gained preliminary approvals from the county and city.
“It’s decision time. And from my view in the dugout, this isn’t about making an easy decision, or a hard decision, but the right decision,” Maddon wrote. “And that’s to approve this plan, so we finally finish the business of where the Tampa Bay Rays will forever call home.”
Maddon framed the stakes through the lens of the 2008 World Series, when an expansion franchise born in 1998 reached baseball’s biggest stage only a decade later. He contrasted that near-miss with his experience managing the Chicago Cubs to a championship on November 2, 2016, ending a drought of 108 years with a final out recorded in the bottom of the 10th inning in Cleveland.
“We proved in October 2008 that the Rays belonged, and that the Tampa Bay region was what you’d call a Baseball Town,” Maddon wrote. “We just didn’t finish the job.”
The warning in Maddon’s appeal was direct. Failure to approve the plan, he wrote, would mean “forever watching other communities think big, and then go big, knowing those communities don’t remotely compare to what Tampa Bay has to offer. Or, in the event this plan is not approved, had to offer.”
Maddon said he plans to attend the Forever Home’s opening, projected for 2029, calling it a chance to match the pride he felt representing Tampa Bay when the Rays reached the World Series backed by what he described as a fan base that “rocked the baseball world.” Elected officials in Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa are expected to deliberate on final approvals for the project.