More than 400 college teams head to Polk County for spring baseball

POLK COUNTY, Fla — March is a great month to be a baseball fan here in Tampa Bay. Every day there are about a dozen spring training games being played right in our own backyard. However, it’s also a great time and place to be a collegiate athlete.

This spring, more than 400 college teams from around the country, consisting of 15,000 players, will take the diamond in Polk County. It’s all part of RussMatt Baseball.

RussMatt Baseball began in 2003 with just two colleges, from up north, invited by George Steinbrenner to get out of the snow and into the sun. This year there are more than 400 schools from 30 states playing ball, as well as 15 schools from Canada.

“It doesn’t get any better, the baseball being played is tremendous, the weather down here is awesome, and Polk County, Visit Central Florida Sports, do a great job with all these facilities,” said Rob Sitz, President of RussMatt Baseball.

Sitz says that on any given day, up to 75 games could be played throughout Polk County, spread out across 17 fields. He said few counties around the nation can compete with that.

Many of these schools, like the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, say without this event, they could be waiting weeks for their first game.

“We got over a foot of snow on the ground when we left so pretty important to get to a place where we can play a lot of teams, play a lot of different competition, and have some weather to be able to compete,” said coach Nat Richter.

There will be a total of 1,300 games played in the span of two months. Every week, schools come and go based on their spring break schedule.

“We normally play our conferences mostly, just New Jersey schools, it’s a fun opportunity and get to see some guys that we don’t normally see,” said pitcher Ben Amon, with the College of New Jersey.

 “We’ve had many players who have played in RussMatt that have made it to the big leagues, and you’ll see a lot of them obviously in all the spring training games we have down here in Florida as well,” said Sitz.

The event is certainly a home run for businesses in Polk County. Visit Central Florida estimates an economic impact of $40 million.

“They can’t wait, they are excited about RussMatt,” said Neal Duncan with Visit Central Florida. “And a lot of these folks, it’s their first time coming to Central Florida, or even more specific, Polk County, so that return visitation, really that economic impact, $40 million per year, it goes on and on.”