Grapefruit League Overview

The Grapefruit League is a great baseball experience involving 16 different baseball teams all over the State of Florida. There are 16 different stadiums spread out across Florida, all participating in professional baseball spring training. A baseball enthuiast can choose from up to 8 different games on a single day, but will have to carefully plan out the logistics of being able to attend more than 4 in a single day.

Join baseball fans around the country for Grapefruit League Spring Training in Florida. The guide below is an overview of Grapefruit League activities to assist baseball fans in watching their favorite teams at Florida spring training stadiums.

The Grapefuit League is one of the largest organized sporting events located east of the Mississippi. In 2008, more than 1,800,000 people attended Grapefruit League baseball games in the 16 different spring training stadiums. The average attendance for a Grapefruit Spring Training baseball game is 6,400 people per game. Starting this year, sixteen Major League baseball teams make Florida their baseball home for the month of March. Grapefruit League baseball fans are fortunate that all of their teams are located within one State and that many of the games are within easy driving distance. The baseball stadiums of Florida's Grapefruit League are located all across the State of Florida, from Fort Myer's, Saraota, Tampa, Clearwater, Lakeland, Dunedin, Ft' Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Winter Haven, and Orlando.

The Grapefruit League has its roots in Florida from February 1913, when the Chicago Cubs arrived in Tampa for the region's first spring training baseball game. By 1913, the cleveland Indians were training in Pensacola, Florida and the trend to train in Florida in the spring of the year had started. By the spring of 1914, the Sunshine State had the beginnings of a Grapfruit spring training league with the Cubs in Tampa, the St. Louis Browns in St. Petersburg, the St. Louis Cardinals in St. Augustine and Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics in Jacksonville. The subsequent years proved the accuracy of the early vision with more teams moving their spring training headquarters to Florida than any other State.

Here's a list of the Florida Grapefruit League teams and the respective baseball stadiums they play at: