Joker Marchant Stadium

Joker Marchant Stadium is a baseball park in Lakeland, Florida that serves as the Detroit Tigers' spring training home. The stadium opened in 1966 and underwent renovation in 2002. The stadium has a capacity of 8,500. it was named after Joker Marchant, local resident and the former director of the Parks and Recreation Department. Once the Tigers have headed north for the start of the regular season, the stadium becomes the home of the Lakeland Flying Tigers and the Gulf Coast Tigers. The park saw its largest crowd in 2011 when more than 10,000 packed the stadium, with the help of additional temporary seating, to see the Boston Red Sox play the Detroit Tigers. The field is distinctive because it has been the long-term home for the Tigers, an unusual occurrence in Major League Baseball. Many teams spend just a few years in town before moving on to a nearby city, but Joker Marchant and Lakeland have built a strong relationship with the Tigers, who have been training for their regular season in the stadium since 1934. They hold the record for longest time in a city by a team for spring training and the next closest team in the Philadelphia Phillies, who have trained in Clearwater for just over a decade.