Holman Stadium (Vero Beach)

Holman Stadium in Vero Beach, FL, was the home of Vero Beach affiliated baseball from 1953 through 2008. After that, the Vero Beach Devil Rays of the Florida State League moved into a just-rebuilt ballpark in Port Charlotte, FL.

Holman returned to hosting minor league games, but on an annual basis, in 2014 as the home of the Jackie Robinson Celebration Game every April 15th. The contest, which benefits the United Way of Indian River County, is a transferred regular-season FSL game played on the date Robinson broke the color line with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers. After the inaugural event, the game has been hosted by the St. Lucie Mets. The event, which has been cancelled once by rain and twice by the Coronavirus pandemic, has neither been resumed nor officially cancelled since MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization. A 2022 game was announced in January but never played, reportedly because MLB "didn't approve" it. The UWIRC said at the time that the event had not been officially discontinued. On March 20, 2023, the UWIRC responded to an inquiry that there would be no game this year.

Bud Holman, who managed the Vero Beach airport and was trying to find a use for land the U.S. government had just returned to the airport after using it as a World War II Navy base, convinced Brooklyn Dodgers co-owner Walter O'Malley to build a spring-training complex on it. Dodger Town - then two words - opened in 1948. In March 1950, O'Malley announced that a "little stadium" would be built, and Holman Stadium opened in 1953. The Dodgers would train in Vero Beach through the 2008 season, after which they stopped toying with moving spring training to Arizona and did so.

Affiliated baseball didn't come along until the Dodgers put a team into the FSL in 1980. They added a Gulf Coast League (now the Florida Complex League) team in 2001 but left the FSL after the 2006 campaign. Holman stayed in the FSL when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays stepped in, and still had the GCL Dodgers - but only for two more seasons. When the Dodgers moved the rest of their Florida operations to Arizona, the Rays consolidated theirs in Port Charlotte.

O'Malley's son Peter took over Dodgertown in 2012, and the Umpire Training Academy moved there. The next year, O'Malley rebranded it "Historic Dodgertown - Vero Beach".

MLB leased Dodgertown in 2018, in April 2019 renaming it The Jackie Robinson Training Complex. That same year, it became the only sports venue on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.[1] Holman Stadium itself retains its name - and remains, although its press box was demolished in September 2021.

Holman Stadium was the last ballpark in the minors without covered dugouts.

Jackie Robinson Celebration Game

Year	Score	Attendance
2014	Brevard County Manatees 7, Lakeland Flying Tigers 1	4,019
2015	St. Lucie Mets 9, Brevard County Manatees 3	5,915
2016	St. Lucie Mets 4, Brevard County Manatees 0	4,623
2017	St. Lucie Mets 9, Florida Fire Frogs 5	6,849
2018	St. Lucie Mets vs. Dunedin Blue Jays	Canceled, rain
2019	Fort Myers Miracle 7, St. Lucie Mets 3	5,112
2020	March 16: Florida State League suspends operations	Canceled, pandemic
2021	Jan. 5: MLB delays start of minor league seasons to May	Canceled, pandemic
2022	Pairing announced in January, but with no subsequent cancellation announcement no game was played
2023	No game