TAMPA, Fla. — My boss took me to a Tampa Bay Rays game earlier this month. Fans filled most of the seats at Steinbrenner Field, despite it being a midweek game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This was one of those ideal April evenings that confirm why baseball is best watched outdoors. Warm, but pleasant. A slight breeze. Sheet lightning flashed in the clouds far away to the east. The game even sounded better — cleaner, less echoey.

More than most sports, the national pastime is a link to the past. Sitting outside makes it easier to get lost in the nostalgia. After all, Babe Ruth hit all of his Major League home runs outdoors. Jackie Robinson never stole a base in an air-conditioned dome. The fictional Ray Kinsella didn’t build a retractable roof over his Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.

However, April in Tampa will soon give way to June. No amount of nostalgia can subdue nature, with its triple-digit heat index, hair-curling humidity and afternoon deluges. Even May can get swampy in these parts. Diehard fans would still attend outdoor games in the summer. Everyone else would do the sane thing and retreat indoors.

Enter the crazy idea: Two stadiums.

Many of you will recall the proposal to split home games between Tampa Bay and Montreal. Support for the idea started slowly, gained traction, and marinated for over a year, until Major League Baseball finally said no. Montreal is in a different country, 1,300 miles from Tampa Bay. It was complicated.

What if the two cities were much closer together? Could the Rays split home games between Tampa and St. Petersburg?

The boss who took me to the game likes the idea and laid out the broad strokes as we watched the Rays beat the Pirates. Since then, two other people have asked me about the possibility, so I ran the concept by a dozen other baseball fans. The reactions were mixed, from “I like the creative thinking” to “Dead on arrival.” I’m leaning toward the latter.

The idea includes the Rays finding a way to build an outdoor stadium in Tampa with 15,000 to 20,000 seats. The team would play spring training games and the first part of the regular season there.

Tropicana Field, severely damaged by Hurricane Milton last year, would get refurbished, including a new roof. Sometime around June each season, the team would move to the Trop’s indoor comfort. In the fall, near the end of the season, the Rays may return to the Tampa stadium. The details would need to be worked out.

On the upside, the Tampa Bay area retains its Major League Baseball team. Fans get both the outdoor experience and the relief of an air-conditioned dome. The Rays could charge premium prices in the smaller Tampa stadium and tap into a fan base that often complains about driving across a bridge to St. Petersburg.

Proponents also believe it would be less costly. The recently scrapped 30,000-seat indoor stadium in St. Petersburg cost $1.3 billion — and that’s without inevitable overruns.

Comparisons are tricky because no major league baseball team has recently built such a small stadium. They are all much bigger.

In 2018, for instance, the Rays estimated the cost to build a stadium planned for Ybor City at about $600 million — without a roof. That was years ago, when everything cost less, but it was for a 30,000-seat facility, about twice the size of the one envisioned for the split-season proposal.

Near Salt Lake City, a recently opened 8,000-seat minor league ballpark cost $140 million. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the new 6,355-seat, Covenant Health Park cost $114 million. The University of South Florida’s proposed 35,000-seat outdoor multi-use stadium is expected to cost $340 million. None of those are the same size as what we are talking about for Tampa. And none of them are Major League Baseball facilities, with all the expensive — and often mandatory — trappings.

As for the Trop, repairs are estimated at $56 million. Additionally, the facility would likely require significant upgrades if the Rays were to use it for another decade or more. So, sure, it could cost less to rehab the Trop and build a relatively small outdoor stadium, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be expensive.

The Rays declined to comment on the idea, and Major League Baseball did not respond. Convincing MLB to sign off on such a radical departure from normal stadium deals could be one of the biggest hurdles.

Admittedly, this is back-of-the-napkin stuff, with a dizzying number of unknowns. Can the Rays make the numbers work? Will the players like it? Can Tampa find the land? Does St. Pete want to keep Tropicana Field long term? Can supporters convince elected officials in two counties to get on board? Will residents be OK with possibly spending public money on two stadiums? Can both sides of the bay cooperate long enough to pull it off? And on and on.

Outdoor baseball is alluring. So too are creative ideas for keeping the Rays in Tampa Bay. But given so many what-ifs, I won’t hold my breath on this one.

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