Spring training is America’s annual transformation from darkness to light, from cold to warm, when millions of baseball fans – both hardcore and casual – descend upon warmer climes to shed their winter blues. For those of us living north of the Mason-Dixon line, baseball’s spring training is not a luxury but a necessity, our reward for living in climates filled with overcast skies, snow, ice, and rain.
Beer and brats in hand, we arrive in Arizona every March to soak up some sun and catch some baseball. We wait months for that first whiff of freshly mown grass at the ballpark, that first foul ball, that first inevitable sunburn. Who cares whether the starting pitcher is some kid who will likely begin the season in Double-A Frisco? As long as the drinks are cold and the dogs are hot, all is right with the world.
We begin planning our winter getaways months in advance, juggling airline schedules and hotel openings to ensure the maximum number of games. We show up to morning workouts, just to stand by the fences and feel like we’re part of the action. And we take spring-training performances a lot more seriously than do the players and managers.
This book is both for the hardcore baseball fan – who goes to spring training to scout out their favorite team in depth – as well as the more casual fan who heads to spring training more in search of the perfect suntan than in search of this year’s spring phenom. In fact, the casual fan is more likely to get something out of this book: while the hardcores just want to know the shortest route between their hotel and the ballpark, the casual fan knows that the richness of spring training is augmented with visits to local restaurants, shopping areas, and area attractions.
Spring training in Arizona is a concentrated affair, where 15 teams train in the greater Phoenix area; the concentration of 15 teams into just nine facilities makes for baseball nirvana, as you can hit a large number of games with relatively little fuss. A spring-training game in Tempe or Peoria tends to be a rowdier affair, with kids romping through the outfield berm and college co-eds teasing young men. Florida is your father’s spring training and Arizona is party.
We’re arranged this book by ballpark, in alphabetical order: Camelback Ranch at Glendale (Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers), Goodyear Ballpark (Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians) HoHoKam Park (Chicago Cubs), Maryvale Baseball Park (Milwaukee Brewers), Phoenix Municipal Stadium (Oakland Athletics), Peoria Stadium (San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners), Salt River Fields at Talking Stick (Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies), Scottsdale Stadium (San Francisco Giants), Surprise Stadium (Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers), and Tempe Diablo Stadium (Arizona Diamondbacks). We’ll also include a look at Tucson’s Kino Stadium and Las Vegas’s Cashman Field, where games will also be held in March, as well as college games both in Tempe and Tucson.
