Here is my best Tropicana Field seating tip: Don’t pay more than you have to.

OK, let me start this by saying I don’t necessarily condone moving into a seat that you didn’t pay for. It really isn’t fair to people who did pay for those seats, especially when they are the premium seats that cost a second mortgage.

However, I don’t recall ever minding someone keeping a good seat warm that belonged to me, so long as they get out of it immediately and didn’t break wind too much.

My philosophy on moving to a better seat is this: it’s okay so long as you don’t get greedy. If there’s 10,000 people in the ballpark, and you move from a seat that’s in the upper level in the outfield to an upper level seat behind home plate, that’s not going to bother me.

If I paid for the Legends seats at Yankee Stadium and someone who bought a bleacher seat distracts an usher enough to sit next to me, I might not be too happy about that. And there are some premium spots on the Tropicana Field seating chart.

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Chance of catching a foul ball: Excellent.

Anyway, to my point. The Rays average about 15,000 a night for most games. When the ballpark is barely half full on a good night, and if I wasn’t planning to sit in a premium seat, I would just get the cheapest ticket in the ballpark (which, at present, is for the tbt* Party Deck in left field) and move somewhere behind home plate out of everyone’s way.

In my last trip to the Trop my seat was behind home plate anyway, and it wasn’t too expensive. But the three of us moved around and checked the ballpark out from different perspectives (all part of the job) with no problem whatsoever. By the end of the Tampa Bay loss we were sitting in seats that probably cost three times what I paid.

My guess is that by the second or third inning, you can improve your lie to a much better seat, so long as you’re not trying to get the field level seats in the infield. Just be ready to move if the nice usher asks you to.

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More about Tropicana Field:

Visiting Tropicana Field – Five Tips For Newbies

Free Parking at Tropicana Field

Three Foods to Try at Tropicana Field

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Tropicana Field doesn’t have a lot of retro classic ballpark feel going for it, which is what makes the Tropicana Field Party Deck special. Sorry, forgot the sponsor, the GTE Financial Party Deck.

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Just a few rows to get to the all-important private concourse!

The Rays, like most teams in baseball, have to offer special enticements to get people to sit in the worst seats in the venue. In this case those seats are in Party Deck, formerly known as the Beach.

These seats are in the highest level in left field; imagine the view from the Green Monster seats at Fenway without the prestigious experience (or the prestigious cost!). Not to mention that they’re bench seats, great for touching cheeks with your neighbor.

So what’s the advantage of the Party Deck? Well, they cost the same as the upper reserved tickets and are as such the cheapest seats in Tropicana Field. And being separate from the rest of the ballpark, chances are you won’t have to wait in line for your Cuban sandwich, always a plus.

The Trop has colorful concourses.

But it’s a very different atmosphere…the concourse area behind the Party Deck is designed like Ybor City, with bright colors, gas lamp style lights and concession stands like the Ybor Cantina selling Cuban sandwiches. The bench seats give the area a bleachers feel, as if you were channeling your inner Wrigley Bleacher Bum.

In other words, the Tropicana Field Party Deck wouldn’t be the section of choice for most fans.

But here’s what’s cool about baseball. You still see people sitting in there. There seems to be a sense of belonging here. In the same way that the super-royal-Legendary-Lexus box seats in the newer ballparks give people a sense of belonging to an exclusive club distinguished entirely by income level.

Why pay $500 more to bond with someone, especially if they’re not even into baseball? It is, after all, still a ballgame.

The exclusive and prestigious tbt* Party Deck, now sponsored by GTE Financial. No cell phone dwellers allowed.

I know which group I’d rather hang out with, especially if I’m picking up the tab for my ticket. A smartphone addicted salesman who is still hashing out major deals in the top of the sixth of a one-run game with two men on is not my type of ballgame companion.

College kids could go just about anywhere outdoors in Florida and have a better party atmosphere. People could network anywhere in the Ybor City area in Tampa or somewhere in downtown St. Petersburg. But for whatever reason, they’d rather go to a ballgame and sit miles away from the action in an indoor stadium with artificial turf.

That’s my kind of fan.

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