CLEARWATER, Fla. — The first sign of spring in Clearwater is finally here after the Philadelphia Phillies equipment trucks pulled into BayCare Ballpark on Friday. 

Pitchers and catchers for the organization arrive Feb. 12 for spring training, which the city and the club are looking forward to as the area continues to recover from hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“Imagine, you know, this whole field being underwater,” said Doug Kemp, general manager for BayCare Ballpark. “Every pad that we have on the walls, you know, came off.”

What You Need To Know

  • The Philadelphia Phillies equipment trucks have arrived in Clearwater after driving down from Pennsylvania

  • Spring training home in Clearwater, BayCare Ballpark, has been under renovation after sustaining about $5 million worth of damage from this past hurricane season

  • According to the general manager of the ballpark, they saw several feet of floodwaters blanket the field and the clubhouses beneath the stadium stands, which includes office space, batting cages and other training facilities

  • Even though the home clubhouse still needs work to be done, they hope to have that completed by Feb. 12, the day pitchers and catchers report. Elsewhere, the ballpark's renovations have been completed 

  • SPRING TRAINING: After an event-filled offseason, Spring Training set to return Rays to the field

In October, on the same day the Phillies were eliminated in the playoffs, Kemp was watching BayCare Ballpark essentially become a lake.

“You stand there, and you look at it and you just you think, where do I start?” Kemp recalled.

Kemp said the stadium got several feet of water, and it went everywhere.

He said the damage cost about $5 million.

“The water line was, see where the ‘home dugout’ sign is?” Kemp said while showing Spectrum Bay News 9 around the stadium. “You couldn’t see that. It was over it and these batting cages that we had just built were full of water.”

It was a bitter pill to swallow considering they had just done renovations to the visiting clubhouse last year. That said, Kemp said it created a great and easy blueprint for the restoration.

“You take a tragedy, and you try to make it better,” Kemp said. “So, we want to make it better for our players, for our staff.”

After Milton, when most of the water receded, they got to work remediating the stadium by clearing carpets and drywall and restoring the field to make it ready for spring training.

“Our staff came together and I’m just really proud of the effort that they gave us to be able to get to this point,” Kemp said.

That pride extends to the city too, according to Mayor Bruce Rector, who was impressed to see all that hard work come to fruition.

“Spring training brings a sense of renewal and coming out of a very tough fall hurricane season, we need, the entire Tampa Bay community, needs a spirit of renewal right now,” he said.

And even though work isn’t fully complete, with the home side clubhouse still in progress, the optimism out of BayCare Ballpark is as strong as Bryce Harper’s swing when he drives a ball over the fence.

“We have one of the, we feel like, one of the best facilities in, you know, all of spring training and, you know, this damage is not going to change that,” Kemp said.

According to Kemp, they hope to have the work on the home clubhouse finished by the time pitchers and catchers report on Feb. 12.

He says they were supposed to have a new video board in place for spring, but Milton delayed that process.

They plan for it to be installed during the Clearwater Threshers season this summer.