Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Photo courtesy of Flickr.com
It didn’t gain big headlines. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle buried it on Page 7 of The Sporting Green. Yet news that the Oakland Athletics may be moving their spring training operations to Mesa, Ariz., could affect half the Cactus League when the dust has settled.
In case you missed it, the A’s have entered into an exclusive negotiating period through May 15 with Mesa to discuss playing at Hohokam Park in 2015. That is one year after the Cubs will have left for their new “Wrigleyville West” stadium, which Mesa is building it its Riverview area.
An A’s spring move from one Phoenix-area park to another has far-reaching ramifications, not just with the Cactus League but the rest of the spring training in Major League Baseball:
Hohokam Park. Photo courtesy of Flickr.com
* The A’s would get to leave Phoenix Municipal Stadium, which is the oldest park in the Phoenix-area spring circuit and holds 8775 fans. While Muni has received many facelifts over the years, it is land-locked by a major road (Van Buren Street) to the north, the Phoenix Zoo and surrounding business parks.
Because of this, the A’s training fields are on the other side of Papago Mountain, almost in Scottsdale. The beauty of Hohokam is that its training fields are attached the ballpark, like the most of the other spring training facilities in the Cactus League.
From a baseball standpoint, this would make a people like General Manager Billy Beane happy campers. Plus, there’s more than enough fields to keep eye on the major-league workouts and the minor-leaguers.
* As opposed to what the Cubs say, Hohokam Park is very nice facility. It’s just that the Cubs are so valuable to Mesa they asked for the moon and the sun – and got both. They will go from a 12,500-seat Hohokam Park to a 15,000-seat Wrigleyville West with suites and everything but Waveland Avenue.
That said, Hohokam doesn’t feel outdated. It may not be as spiffy as Scottsdale Stadium, which is the San Francisco Giants’ spring home, but it is a nice draw by itself.
A’s fans who have been to spring training but never to Hohokam will be pleased withe experience. The concourses are wider. The stadium has ample parking. And there’s great grass seating all around the outfield, something Phoenix Muni never could accommodate.
* An A’s move to Mesa would hurt rumored plans by a local casino that wanted to build a new home for the Los Angeles and the A’s near Scottsdale.
The buzz was that another Indian tribe wanted to mimic the spring training facility – Salt River Fields – that Talking Stick Resort built for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. The Talking Stick facility is so nice, it could house a major-league team for the regular season and you may not notice the difference.
Talking Stick proved that you don’t need public money to build a new state-of-the-art spring training facility when it’s done on native American land with gambling profits. And it would not be surprising to see more ballparks built near Indian casinos, which are plentiful in Phoenix and are near easy-access freeways.
The Angels have whispered they are not happy at Tempe Diablo Stadium, which seats about 9,700 fans. The Angels have an agreement to stay at Diablo until 2025, but that doesn’t stop them from talking to other prospective stadium builders when Diablo has the second smallest facility in the Cactus League.
* Mesa and the A’s have said this was the team’s idea and the city wasn’t looking to poach at team. That’s fine, but Mesa comes out as the big winner if this move comes to pass.
Mesa will more than make up for spending $99 million to build Wrigleyville with the extra cash they will gain from hosting the A’s, who trained in Mesa in the 1960s. Mesa would become the second East Valley city to host two teams – besides Talking Stick – and the sixth in the Valley.
Mesa would have the Cactus League’s No. 4 and No. 10 draws from 2011. With the Cactus League bringing in more than $360 million to the state this year, there’s no discounting the value of having two teams training in your city. It doesn’t hurt that Mesa is scheduled to receive $8 million from Maricopa County for upgrades to Hohokam.
* With a ballpark open in this game of musical chairs, there’s room for another team to jump from Florida to Arizona no matter what happens.
Since 2003, six teams have moved to the Cactus League from the Grapefruit League. All of them found bigger homes with more amenities, including the Los Angeles Dodgers who made a celebrated move from Vero Beach to Glendale, Ariz.
The funny thing is that while Phoenix Muni has proven to be too cramped for the A’s, it would be a step up for the St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros and the Minnesota Twins, the three Major League Baseball teams west of the Mississippi that spend spring training in Florida.
The Cardinals (6,700) the Astros (5,300) and the Twins (7,500) play in comparatively smaller spring venues in Florida. With Phoenix Muni in line for $3.5 million for renovations, it should not be a surprise if one of those franchises looked hard at moving their spring operations west.
The Astros would be the most likely candidate, considering they were just sold and are moving from the National League Central to the American League West in 2013. Wouldn’t it be appropriate for them to train in the same city as the rest of their division?
All this because the A’s jumped first at soon-to-be vacant Hohokam Park. It would be sad to see Muni empty, too. After all, from 1996-97 it was home of the Phoenix Giants/Firebirds, who were the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Yet when progress hits a hanging curveball, it’s best to get out of the way.
To think, it wasn’t that long ago that the Cactus League might have been left for dead when it was down to seven teams. Now, the Cactus League has become the place to be for spring training baseball – and all of its cities know how to flaunt it.
