Rays Denounce Guns, DeSantis Vetoes Team's $35M Pasco Training Field

FLORIDA — Money for a $35 million spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays was cut out of the state budget by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and numerous reports note the decision came after the baseball team voiced support for gun safety measures.

DeSantis cut a record $3.1 billion out of the state's $112 billion budget plan on Thursday by vetoing expenditures such as the training site for the Rays in Pasco County. The facility would have served as a sports training and youth tournament complex.

This veto follows a week after the Rays made a series of tweets on May 26 denouncing recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. On the same day, the Rays announced on Twitter the team would make a $50,000 donation to Everytown for Gun Safety's Support Fund, a gun violence prevention organization.

"In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with @Yankees, we will use our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence," the team tweeted on May 26. "The devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are so intolerable."

DeSantis took aim at the Rays after a tweet from the team about gun laws, according to the news site OutKick, which is owned by the Fox Corporation.

The money was included in the budget plan sent to DeSantis by state legislators earlier this year, but the governor used his line-item authority to veto specific expenditures like the Rays' site, The Washington Post said.

The Rays included information about shootings in the U.S. on more than 10 tweets followed with the source.

"Firearms were the leading cause of death for American children and teens in 2020," the team tweeted.

DeSantis said at a public speaking event Friday that he doesn't support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums, The Washington Post reported.

"The youth sports complex in Odessa was not specifically linked to the Rays in the state budget proposal, but Pasco County officials had suggested it could also serve as the team’s spring training complex," the Post said.

The Rays' spring training field is in Port Charlotte.

DeSantis vetoed $20,000,000 for the planned H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute's health science park in Pasco County.

In his veto letter, he said, "I do not support the provision of funding that will tie the state to a long-term 30-year commitment that inhibits budget flexibility. These state funds could be used to support more than $300 million of bonding capacity that would impact the state's debt capacity without any state oversight."

For the full list of line-items, visit 2022 Veto List.