Fans came to Jack Russell Memorial Stadium for decades each spring to see Mike Schmidt and other Philadelphia Phillies greats during spring training. The Rolling Stones played to a small crowd in the stadium right before they made it big in America.

Soon the 52-year-old stadium, which fans counted among the last old-time Florida spring training venues, will be nothing but dust and rubble.

A demolition crew hired by the city of Clearwater is set to begin tearing down the stadium, which had fallen into disrepair even before the Phillies moved to a new facility in 2004. A city commissioner broke his ankle at the stadium in 2001 when a roped off section of concrete broke away, sending the politician plummeting 9 feet to the ground.

The field, dugouts and an office building will remain as part of a baseball academy.

Jim Felce was 5 when he first came to the stadium with his father in 1977.

"Mike Schmidt pulled me over the right field fence, sat me on his knee and signed my baseball," said Felce, who played minor league baseball and now coaches at an academy on the stadium property. "(Larry) Bowa did the same thing. Can you imagine being 5 years old and that happening? From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a baseball player."

In May 1965, The Rolling Stones played to an excited crowd of about 3,000 at the stadium. The show ended with a scuffle in which 200 fans threw toilet paper at police. A month later the Stones' "Satisfaction" became their first No. 1 hit on the American charts.

The stadium was named for Jack Erwin Russell, who pitched 15 years in the major leagues before moving to Clearwater and becoming a city commissioner. His career highlights include being picked for the 1934 American League All-Star team; pitching in two World Series; and, unhappily for him, throwing the pitch that became Babe Ruth's 477th home run.

The senior Russell died in 1990 at 85.

"We miss my grandfather and we're going to miss the stadium as well," said Jack E. Russell III, 46, a Clearwater banker and son of Jack E. Russell Jr., 71. "But we've got to let it go some time. You hate to see history go by the wayside, but that's progress."