Tinker Field

Home-plate gate at Tinker Field, Aug-2003.

The seating bowl, taken from the first-base line warning track.

The Florida Citrus Bowl football stadium looms in right field.

• Location: Florida Citrus Bowl complex, Tampa Avenue at East-West Expressway, Orlando, Fla.
• Opened: 1923
• Closed: 1999 (for pro baseball)
• Stadium demolished: 2015
• Home team: Orlando Bulldogs (1923-24), Colts (1926-27), Gulls (1937), Senators (1938-53), CBs (1954-55), Seratomas (1956), Flyers (1957-58), Dodgers (1959-61), Twins (1962-72), Florida State League; Orlando Twins (1973-89), SunRays (1990-92), Cubs (1993-96), Rays (1997-99), Southern League; Orlando Juice, Senior Professional Baseball Association (winter 1989-90); spring training, Cincinnati Reds (1923-30), Brooklyn Dodgers (1934-35), Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins (1936-42, 1946-90)
• Capacity: 5,104

For the 2000 season, the newer facilities at Disney’s Wide World of Sports enticed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to move their Orlando Rays down to Walt Disney World. However, attendance there suffered because Orlando residents didn’t want to drive 20 miles down a freeway in rush-hour traffic to cheer on their ball club. The team moved to Montgomery, Ala., for 2004.

Tinker Field stands in the shadow of the Florida Citrus Bowl, the home of the University of Central Florida football team as well as the bowl game that bears the name of the stadium. The Citrus Bowl was expanded in the early 2010s, with the football stadium footprint extending into the outfield at Tinker Field. That made the old ballpark unsuitable for actual baseball play. In 2015, the Orlando city council designated Tinker Field a historic site, ensuring that the diamond will be preserved, but the stadium structure surrounding it has been torn down.