Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium
- Home of Jupiter Hammerheads, 1998 to present
- Home of Palm Beach Cardinals, 2003 to present
- Home of GCL Expos, 1998 to 2001
- Home of GCL Marlins, 2002 to 2019; FCL Marlins, 2021 to present
- Home of GCL Cardinals, 2007 to 2019, FCL Cardinals, 2021 to present
- Spring Training Home of Montreal Expos, 1998 to 2001
- Spring Training Home of St. Louis Cardinals, 1998 to present
- Spring Training Home of Florida Marlins, 2002 to 2011; Miami Marlins, 2012 to present
BUILT: 1998
CAPACITY: 6,800
Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium in Jupiter, FL, is the only American ballpark housing six professional baseball clubs: the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals for spring training; their owned-and-operated Low-A farm teams, the Jupiter Hammerheads and Palm Beach Cardinals; and their rookie-Florida Complex League teams. It was also the Marlins' 2020 Coronavirus pandemic alternate training site.
Originally Roger Dean Stadium, "The Dean" opened in 1998 as the spring-training home of the Cards and Montreal Expos. The two played each other in its debut, drawing 6,899 as Mark McGwire collected - in separate at-bats - both its first run batted in and home run.
From the beginning, The Dean also hosted the Hammerheads - then an Expos affiliate - and their rookie club in the Gulf Coast League, now the FCL. A figurative whirlwind hit the ballpark in 2002, when the Expos and Marlins effectively swapped this stadium and their affiliations in the then-High-A FSL. Just one year later, Palm Beach took over the FSL franchise vacated when the Texas Rangers moved their FSL, spring and rookie operations to Arizona. With the Cards already a tenant here, they changed their High-A affiliation from the Carolina League's Potomac Cannons to the empty FSL slot. The Palm Beach Cardinals thus became the ballpark's second FSL club. In 2007, St. Louis put a team into the GCL, bringing the stadium's team complement to six.
The aforementioned "effective swap" was actually a bit more complicated. Jeffrey Loria, the owner of the troubled Expos, had sold them to Major League Baseball and used the proceeds to buy the Florida Marlins, as they were then known. Because MLB intended to contract the Expos, Loria was allowed to keep some of their most valuable assets - including their lease on this ballpark. A lawsuit to force the other contraction-targeted team, the Minnesota Twins, to honor its lease and opposition from the MLB Players Association eventually killed the contraction plan, leaving the Expos as wards of MLB and completely stripped down of assets and personnel.
"The Dean" was actually the first Florida ballpark to house two MLB organizations. Another has since opened, and there are four in Arizona - where Peoria pioneered the concept in 1994. Of those, only The Dean has six teams because only it has full-season minor league teams as well as spring training and rookie ball.
Dean was a successful car dealer whose name went on the ballpark after his heirs made a $1 million donation toward its construction. That was in a day when straight naming rights sales were rare, but this would evolve and 20 years later "Chevrolet" was added to the stadium's original name.
In 2012, The Dean hosted a qualifying round for the 2013 World Baseball Classic.
The June 18, 2021, game saw a possibly unique delay: The box score reports an 11-minute stoppage with no code like "fr alm evcn" - but Cameron Barstad of the Hammerheads fouled a ball directly onto a concourse fire alarm. It went off, triggering a brief evacuation.
Designed by HOK Sport (now Populous), the ballpark has two seating levels and three clubhouses: one for the Cards clubs, another for the Marlins clubs and a third for visiting teams. Jupiter Stadium LTD operates the farm teams for their parent clubs.
Jupiter is in the Marlins' protected territory.
Related Sites[edit]
Current ballparks in the Florida State League | |||||||||
West Division | East Division | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BayCare Ballpark | George M. Steinbrenner Field | Hammond Stadium | LECOM Park | Joker Marchant Stadium | TD Ballpark | Clover Park | Jackie Robinson Ballpark | Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium |
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