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Each day, I was determined to see at least the first pitch at one stadium and the last pitch at another.Three games on the west side on opening day, three games on the east side on the first Saturday, then a frantic final day with two games on each side of the Valley divide. As I calculated all the possibilities from the Cactus League schedule, I found only one path to success.
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So I had to figure out how to catch a game involving each of the 15 teams on at least one of the 10 fields. Ten teams share five stadiums and five teams have their own.That’s the experience I set out to discover. For some 45 days every year, Arizona brings the nation together over hot dogs and baseball. That’s enough to compensate for the annoying waits for a restaurant table this time of year.īut there’s so much more to the appeal of spring training than just money. Total spending is around $500 million each spring, according to a 2015 study conducted by Tucson FMR-Associates. Fifty-eight percent of the fans come from outside the Valley. Attendance at last year’s games almost topped 2 million for the first time. It’s been well-reported how much the Cactus League means to the Valley economically. A few years ago, a Wall Street Journal reporter demonstrated that he could attend six games in the Valley in the same time it took another writer to drive between two fields in Florida. The farthest distance between stadiums here is 47 miles from Surprise Stadium to Hohokam Stadium in Mesa. All I had to pay for was the hats.īlake Benard Florida also has 15 major league teams in its Grapefruit League, but many of their stadiums are hours apart, which means you have to spend a lot of time on the highways with unskilled Florida drivers. The teams provided media credentials for most of the games. I get reimbursed for the mileage and the food. And I’d eat something at every park as well as buy a cap for each team. As editor of Phoenix New Times, I assigned myself to write this cover story about watching all 15 teams play at the 10 stadiums during a single weekend, from Friday, February 23, to Sunday, February 25. So this year, I made an executive decision. I vowed to attend a game at each of the 10 stadiums and buy a hat to represent each of the 15 teams.Īfter five years, I had been to two exactly two parks, Goodyear and Peoria, and purchased zero caps. When I moved here in 2013, I was thrilled the first time I watched a baseball game under the warm February sun.
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After all, even the Chicago Cubs, darlings of so many springs, had finally had their day, winning the World Series in 2016 after more than a century of postseason sorrow. Arizona is where it happens every spring, where hope begins anew that this could be THE year for your team.
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The Cactus League holds an equal, perhaps even more romantic appeal for baseball fans than Canton does for pro football followers. But then one year turned into 33 and I still hadn’t been there when I moved to the desert five years ago. This is Mecca if you’re an NFL fan, a shrine to all the game’s greats. And I determined that I wasn’t going to miss another classic sports experience.įor more than three decades, I lived a short drive from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. I’ve never been quite sure why they call the baseball played here in February and March “spring training,” since spring doesn’t officially arrive until everyone in the Cactus League is ready to leave.īut I am sure that there is nowhere in the world where you can became so sated with baseball as in Arizona this time of year. Baseball always starts with the first pitch. Hohokam is a 17-minute drive, according to Google Maps, and I still have a bit of a walk to my car. The game is tied 4-4 in the bottom of the eighth. These are the only two teams and the only spring training field I haven’t yet seen. As I purchase a lemonade at my ninth stop, Scottsdale Stadium, I check my phone for the score of Kansas City versus Oakland at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa. on Sunday, February 25, 2018, I realize I am running out of time to complete my goal of seeing all 15 Major League Baseball teams play in the PHX’s 10 stadiums during the opening weekend of the Cactus League. It was updated on February 22, 2019.Īt 3:37 p.m.
New Times image Editor's note: This story was originally published on March14, 2018.