There is perhaps no ballpark more beautifully created in the state of Florida than Brighthouse Networks Park. The Spring Training Home for the Phillies was given the care and beauty that is normally reserved for Arizona based Spring Training homes. Brighthouse Networks Park replaced the venerable ballpark known as "Jack Russell", which for a non-stop period of 50 years... was the Spring Training home to the Philadelphia Phillies, and was one of the main destinations for professional Spring Training in the state. What is forgotten however, is that long
long before Brighthouse or Jack Russell... there was yet another ballpark which served as home to Spring Training in Clearwater Florida. During its day, that ballpark was just as revered, but it has become sort of lost and forgotten. Perhaps it is due to the amount of "respect" given to Jack Russell Stadium which became known as "the ballpark of Clearwater". Either way, it was not Jack Russell that started the era of exciting Major League Spring Training Baseball in Clearwater. The start of that event had actually taken place here 30 years earlier, in front of the beautiful wooden grandstands of the ballpark known as "Green Field"!