Joker Marchant Stadium

New entrance to Joker Marchant Stadium, Aug-2003.

The seating bowl, as seen from the top of the first-base stands.

Looking out over the field after nightfall.

Chronological Tour: Stop 258

• Location: Tiger Town, Al Kaline Way off Lakeland Hills Boulevard (FL 33), Lakeland, Fla. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1966 (renovated 2003, 2017)
• Additional names: Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium (2017)
• Home team: Lakeland Tigers (1967-2001, 2003-06), Flying Tigers (2007-15, 2017-present), Florida State League; spring training, Detroit Tigers (1966-present)
• Capacity: 7,100

Rating: 4 baseballs

The field was closed for renovation in 2002; the renovation added a new concourse area, replaced some seats, reconfigured the bullpens, and added a berm and picnic area, among other changes that cost $11 million. While one old-timer said she liked the old place better, I suspect that’s just nostalgia. I liked this park.

Besides minor upgrades to the seating bowl, the 2017 renovation added The ’34 Club, down the right-field line, which honors the Tigers’ arrival in Lakeland for spring training in 1934. A walk-around outfield concourse was also added, including an outfield bar and berm area.

Aside from a bleacher area down the third-base line, everything here is stadium seating. The concourse and all the aisles are sufficiently wide. I could come there every night. Attendance at the first game I attended, though, was only 405. And that’s not because of the rain; that’s about average, which is a shame.

Joker Marchant, by the way, was a city commissioner in the mid-1960s who helped spur the construction of the Tigers’ complex. The field sponsorship by the Publix supermarket chain, based in Lakeland, was added at the time of the renovation in 2017.

In 2007, the Tigers rebranded their Florida State League team as the Flying Tigers, to honor an airstrip and flight school that had occupied the site and trained aviators in the years leading up to, and continuing through, the second World War.