{"id":42773,"date":"2024-03-10T22:13:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=42773"},"modified":"2024-03-10T22:13:44","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:13:44","slug":"detroit-tigers-spring-training-boosts-economy-in-lakeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/03\/10\/detroit-tigers-spring-training-boosts-economy-in-lakeland\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Tigers Spring Training boosts economy in Lakeland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sports photos by Tom Hagerty Click here to see more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MLB Spring Training is in full swing in Florida with the first week of games already underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an economic boost in the Bay area for towns near the beach, but spots further inland are seeing the benefit of baseball fans\u2019 business, too.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Good luck getting a table inside\u00a0Charlie\u2019s Family Restaurant by Dee\u00a0a couple of hours before the first pitch of a Detroit Tigers game in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s packed in here, and if Delicia Ebare, who\u2019s the \u2018Dee\u2019 in the name of the restaurant, doesn\u2019t stay clocked in, things can get overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been staying on top of it this morning, more so,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if you breathe the wrong way, you\u2019ll get behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie\u2019s has been right across the street from Tiger Town since 1996, where the Detroit Tigers\u2019 spring training facility is located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Ebare\u2019s 27th year serving Tigers fans and says it\u2019s pretty much like this daily for the two months major league baseball is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cUsually, around the beginning of February, we\u2019ll start getting people coming and going over to the stadium,\u201d Ebare said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s Detroiters or folks supporting the visiting team, the important thing for spots like Charlie\u2019s is the money they bring with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to previous reports from the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, spring training brings in over $50 million to the city\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It creates must-stop shops like Charlie\u2019s for people looking for a bite before teams take the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt brings a lot of revenue for the whole area, and it gets us seen,\u201d Ebare said. \u201cLike I said, traffic gets backed up and we\u2019re in a small area, you know, shopping center. So, people get to see us when they\u2019re stopped at the lights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Not to mention, with more people moving to Florida, having the Tigers take the field in Lakeland for the 88th straight year adds even more to do in this growing part of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLakeland is growing, so we\u2019re catching up with the rest of the surrounding cities,\u201d Ebare said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Loading up the local economy is creating as much excitement for folks in Lakeland as it does for Tiger fans when their team loads up the bases on the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sports photos by Tom Hagerty Click here to see more MLB Spring Training is in full swing in Florida with the first week of games already underway. It\u2019s an economic… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7499,7567],"tags":[7779],"class_list":["post-42773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-detroit-tigers","category-spring-training","tag-detroit-tigers-spring-training-boosts-economy-in-lakeland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42782,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773\/revisions\/42782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}