Tinker Field was an outdoor

baseball stadium A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

, United States. Named after

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United S ...

inductee Joe Tinker, it was located in the West Lakes neighborhoods of

Downtown Orlando Downtown Orlando is the historic core and central business district of Orlando, Florida, United States. It is bordered by Marks Street in the north, Mills Avenue ( SR 15) in the east, Orange Blossom Trail ( US 441) in the west, and Kaley Avenu ...

. In April 2015, the City of Orlando tore down the grandstands and removed all other extant buildings, due to its proximity to renovation work on the Orlando Citrus Bowl football stadium (later renamed as

Camping World Stadium Camping World Stadium is an outdoor stadium in Orlando, Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States located in the West Lakes neighborhood of Downtown Orlando, west of new sports and entertainment facilities including the Kia Center, the Dr. Phil ...

). The ballpark is now memorialized by Tinker Field History Plaza. Constructed in 1914, Tinker Field was the spring training home of the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...

, Washington Senators, and

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The team is named afte ...

. It was also the home park of the Orlando Rays

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nort ...

baseball team before they moved to Cracker Jack Stadium in 2000. It was located directly adjacent to the western side of the aforementioned football stadium and boasted a capacity of 5,100 before the grandstands were removed in 2015.

History

The field first saw use for baseball in 1914; the first known stadium built on the site was in 1923. It was all-wood construction and seated 1,500. For the next 10 years, the

called Tinker Field their

spring training Spring training, also called spring camp, is the preseason of the Summer Professional Baseball Leagues, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), and it is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spri ...

home until 1933. The

trained there in 1934 and 1935. In 1936, Clark Griffith moved spring training of the Washington Senators to Orlando, where the Senators (who later relocated as the

) trained until after the 1990 season. The stadium was rebuilt again in 1963, and when

Griffith Stadium Griffith Stadium stood in Washington, D.C., from 1911 to 1965, between Georgia Avenue and 5th Street (left field), and between W Street and Florida Avenue NW. The site was once home to a wooden baseball park. Built in 1891, it was called Bounda ...

in Washington, D.C., was demolished, nearly 1,000 of the stadium's seats were moved to Tinker Field. The remaining seats were sold by the City of Orlando in 2015. The old press box next to the home side dugout was the original press box and can be seen in photographs as early as the 1920s. Some

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

games were played at the stadium, one example being the 1937 edition of the

Orange Blossom Classic The Orange Blossom Classic is an American annual college football game first held from 1933 to 1978 and again since 2021. Starting back up in 2021 the game has been played on Labor Day weekend. History In its first incarnation, the Classic featu ...

. Tinker Field was added to the United States

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2004. With One of the most historical non-baseball events to take place at Tinker Field was a visit from Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

on March 6, 1964. He spoke before thousands of people from the pitcher's mound in his only public speech in the city. On January 28, 2014, during the groundbreaking of the Orlando Citrus Bowl stadium reconstruction, it was announced that the grandstands and all other extant buildings surrounding Tinker Field would be torn down. The reasons cited were that the expansion of the Orlando Citrus Bowl stadium would shorten right field of Tinker Field so much that it would make it unusable even if it the entire building complex was renovated. On March 9, 2015, Orlando City Council approved an ordinance to demolish the grandstands and buildings, and allocated money to re-create the area surrounding the field. In September, 2015, the City of Orlando held a public input meeting and unveiled preliminary plans to memorialize Tinker Field. Tinker Field History Plaza opened in May 2018, memorializing civil rights and baseball in Orlando.

Present

Each November, Tinker Field hosts the

Electric Daisy Carnival Electric Daisy Carnival, commonly known as EDC, is an electronic dance music festival organized by promoter and distributor Insomniac. The annual flagship event, EDC Las Vegas, is held in May at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and is the largest e ...

—a three-day festival that features

electronic dance music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...

with celebrity DJs, visual effects, rides, and art. On September 6, 2015, Tinker Field was the site of West Lakes Family Fun Day—an event held by members of the neighborhoods surrounding the field prior to the MEAC/SWAC Challenge. Each June or July, Tinker Field hosted the Orlando

Vans Warped Tour The Warped Tour is a touring rock music festival that toured the United States and Canada each summer from 1995 until 2019, and returned in 2025 for its 30th anniversary. By 2015, Warped was the largest traveling music festival in the United S ...

—a one-day festival that features

rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...

with popular bands from around the world.

Gallery

File:Tinker Field original interior.jpg, Interior of the original Tinker Field File:Orlando Tinker Field02.jpg, Updated Entry that was added in 1990. File:Orlando Tinker Field03.jpg, View from Tampa Ave along the Left Field line. File:Orlando-Tinker-Field04.jpg, Looking down on Tinker field from The Florida Citrus Bowl.

References

External links

Orange County listings
a
National Register of Historic Places
* at

{{Senior Professional Baseball Association Defunct baseball venues in the United States College football venues in Florida Defunct minor league baseball venues Brooklyn Dodgers spring training venues Cincinnati Reds spring training venues Grapefruit League venues Minor league baseball venues Minnesota Twins spring training venues National Register of Historic Places in Orange County, Florida Rollins Tars football Sports venues in Orlando, Florida Washington Senators (1901–1960) stadiums Baseball venues in Florida Sports venues on the National Register of Historic Places in Florida 1914 establishments in Florida 2015 disestablishments in Florida Sports venues completed in 1914 Sports venues demolished in 2015