{"id":35103,"date":"2015-02-23T00:07:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T05:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=35103"},"modified":"2015-02-23T00:07:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T05:07:10","slug":"the-re-grand-opening-of-hammond-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/02\/the-re-grand-opening-of-hammond-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"The Re-Grand Opening of Hammond Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-35104\" title=\"HDP_4731\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/HDP_4731-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/HDP_4731-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/HDP_4731-1024x681.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>All most 4,000 fans filed through the renewed CenturyLink Sports Complex gates, up the steps and through Hammond Stadium&#8217;s grand new entrance during an open house.<\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/lehighacresgazette\/sets\/72157650575174990\/\">click here<\/a> to see other photos)<\/p>\n<p>At noon, baseball Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven, former Twins pitcher, emceed the ribbon-cutting ceremony that included new manager Paul Molitor and commemorated a two-year, $48.5 million project. It was funded by the state of Florida ($15 million), the Twins (at least $6 million) and hotel bed taxes collected over the next 30 years in Lee County ($27.5 million).<\/p>\n<p>The overhaul brought the Twins&#8217; facilities up to par with those of the Boston Red Sox, who moved into the $80 million JetBlue Park and Fenway South complex three years ago.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->&#8220;Today marks the beginning of a new era, of a longstanding partnership&#8221; Twins president Dave St. Peter said, noting the stadium opened in 1991. &#8220;Now we have the best player development facility in all of Major League Baseball.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All five Lee County commissioners were present for the ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It really creates a nice facility, not just for the people who live in Lee County, but it will draw more people to come and visit Lee County,&#8221; said Lee County commissioner Brian Hamman, noting that 20 percent of those bed taxes will be funding the two baseball stadiums over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All most 4,000 fans filed through the renewed CenturyLink Sports Complex gates, up the steps and through Hammond Stadium&#8217;s grand new entrance during an open house. (click here to see&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}