Category: st. petersburg florida

My Year in Hobbies 2019: September, Part II!

The day after my visit to Brimfield, I went to the Tampa/St. Pete area.

Exterior shot of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tropicana Field is an off-white domed baseball stadium with an angled roof that resembles an orange juicer. Cars are parked in front of the stadium, and trees can be seen just past the cars, off in the distance.
Exterior shot of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tropicana Field is an off-white domed baseball stadium with an angled roof that resembles an orange juicer. Cars are parked in front of the stadium, and trees can be seen just past the cars, off in the distance.

Look! It’s Tropicana Field! Active MLB park #13 for me, and #15 overall (Yankee Stadium II and Shea Stadium are no more).

Interior shot of Tropicana Field, taken from right-center field. Green artificial turf and brown infield dirt can be seen, and blue seating is visible on the other side of the field, as well as an off-white roof.
Interior shot of Tropicana Field, taken from right-center field. Green artificial turf and brown infield dirt can be seen, and blue seating is visible on the other side of the field, as well as an off-white roof.

Interior, from center field! I liked the park a bunch, and think it sucks that people shit all over it like they do. It was a comfortable, fun park.

The roof of Tropicana Field, and the catwalks that run near the top of it.
The roof of Tropicana Field, and the catwalks that run near the top of it.

The catwalks!

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Brendan McKay warms up in the bullpen of Tropicana Field. Just in front of the bullpen, fans and Rays staff circulate in the picnic area of the ballpark.
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Brendan McKay warms up in the bullpen of Tropicana Field. Just in front of the bullpen, fans and Rays staff circulate in the picnic area of the ballpark.

Rays pitcher Brendan McKay warming up, taken from our seats. He pitched really well, and is as good as the hype suggests, even if the numbers don’t bear it out yet.

I didn’t get any in-game shots (I use an iPad primarily, which mostly rules that out, and I still don’t travel with a battery pack, so I was screwed by the end of warmups because I’d been out all day), but I saw the Rays beat a Blue Jays team that didn’t seem to have much left in the tank. It was a fun game, regardless, and my friend Dain and I enjoyed it (Dain especially enjoyed the “JI-MAN CHOI!” chants).

I got to hit the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame while I was at the game, because it’s inside Tropicana Field these days. It was crowded, so it was tough to get pictures of the Ted stuff, but I got a couple pictures from the Hitters Hall of Fame section.

Wade Boggs' case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. A Devil Rays jersey, several baseball bats, 2 baseball caps, a glove, a baseball, and several pictures and plaques are visible in the case.
Wade Boggs’ case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. A Devil Rays jersey, several baseball bats, 2 baseball caps, a glove, a baseball, and several pictures and plaques are visible in the case.

The Wade Boggs display case!

Sadaharu Oh's case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. At center, a large picture of Sadaharu Oh batting is visible. Just below it, a signed Sadaharu Oh Yomiuri Giants jersey is visible, as well as a magazine, a plaque, and a baseball bat.
Sadaharu Oh’s case in the Hitters Hall of Fame section of the Ted Williams Museum, located at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. At center, a large picture of Sadaharu Oh batting is visible. Just below it, a signed Sadaharu Oh Yomiuri Giants jersey is visible, as well as a magazine, a plaque, and a baseball bat.

And the Sadaharu Oh display case!

While in town, I also went to the Dali Museum. Here are a few things that I saw there.

Salvador Dali's "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" painting. The link directly below this image and its caption gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.

“The Hallucinogenic Toreador”, 1969-1970

Salvador Dali's "Portrait of My Dead Brother" painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum's page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “Portrait of My Dead Brother” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.

“Portrait of My Dead Brother”, 1963

Salvador Dali's "Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid (Homage to Crick and Watson)" painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum's page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid (Homage to Crick and Watson)” painting. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the painting, and gives a detailed description of the painting and its history.

“Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid (Homage to Crick and Watson)”, 1963

It’s hard to tell from the photographs themselves, but the paintings themselves are enormous (for instance, “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” is 11′ long and x 13′ tall), and I don’t know that there’s a photograph that’d really do any of them justice.

Salvador Dali's "Aphrodesiac Telephone" sculpture, which is a sculpture of an ivory-colored rotary telephone with an ivory-colored lobster replacing the phone receiver. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum's page on the sculpture, and gives a detailed description of the sculpture and its history.
Salvador Dali’s “Aphrodesiac Telephone” sculpture, which is a sculpture of an ivory-colored rotary telephone with an ivory-colored lobster replacing the phone receiver. The link directly below this image and its caption goes to the Dali Museum’s page on the sculpture, and gives a detailed description of the sculpture and its history.

“Aphrodesiac Telephone”, c. 1936-1938

My lifetime Lobster Phone-in-person count is up to 2 now (I saw the one at Tate Modern in London, as well).

Photo of Haslam's Book Store, St. Petersburg, Florida, taken from across Central Avenue South at 21st Street. A beige building with brick red painted letters that say "HASLAM'S" at the top level (obscured by a tree), and "BOOKS" near the top of the ground level in five different spots. Green curtains cover the windows of the building. A number of cars are parked in front of Haslam's, and the Central Av. S. and 21 St. S. signs are visible across the street.
Photo of Haslam’s Book Store, St. Petersburg, Florida, taken from across Central Avenue South at 21st Street. A beige building with brick red painted letters that say “HASLAM’S” at the top level (obscured by a tree), and “BOOKS” near the top of the ground level in five different spots. Green curtains cover the windows of the building. A number of cars are parked in front of Haslam’s, and the Central Av. S. and 21 St. S. signs are visible across the street.

If you’re in the St. Pete area and looking to shop a bit, I highly recommend going to Haslam’s Book Store. It’s a great old book store that smells like old books and has a ton of stuff.

Mannequins stand outside ARTpool Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida, in various poses. At front left, two mannequins in brightly colored clothing stand up against a tree.
Mannequins stand outside ARTpool Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida, in various poses. At front left, two mannequins in brightly colored clothing stand up against a tree.

I also recommend ARTpool Gallery in St. Petersburg (which, as you may be able to tell from this picture, is right across the street from Haslam’s, and both are not far at all from Tropicana Field) is awesome, too. They sell vintage clothing, music, comics, and all sorts of other things, and the staff are super friendly.

The cover to Dalbello's "whomanfoursays" album. On the cover is a close-up of Lisa Dalbello's face, in yellow, red, blue, black and white tribal warpaint. the name "Dalbello" appears in black faux Cyrillic lettering at the top of the cover, and "whomanfoursays" appears in the bottom left in white scrawled lettering.
The cover to Dalbello’s “whomanfoursays” album. On the cover is a close-up of Lisa Dalbello’s face, in yellow, red, blue, black and white tribal warpaint. the name “Dalbello” appears in black faux Cyrillic lettering at the top of the cover, and “whomanfoursays” appears in the bottom left in white scrawled lettering.

By popular demand, here’s a picture of the best purchase I made at ARTpool, a vinyl copy of Dalbello’s “whomanfoursays”, one of the more adventurous pop records of the ’80s. Have a listen, if you like…

Back to the trip on the whole: we could have a discussion about how I was in an area with a ton of natural beauty (for instance, I saw an amazing Gulf Coast sunset on the beach right before I had dinner at Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill in Clearwater, which was also amazing…), but didn’t post any pictures of that natural beauty here. However, 1. we covered this recently, and 2. when I got home, I was also kind of struck by how I really didn’t take many pictures of scenery. Some of that definitely had to do with my aforementioned constant battle to manage battery power (before my next serious trip, I really need to get an external battery pack), but some of it had to do with my desire, in the moment, to just appreciate what I’m seeing, rather than worrying so much about documenting it all. Sometimes, you just gotta look at stuff and take it in.