The DBacks AAA team is also leaving Tucson Phoenix for Reno Washington D.C. Today.

;)

The White Sox "contractual obligations" sure see to be something they don't want to honor.

Awesome. I move to Tucson and every baseball team is either leaving or wants to.

The Diamondbacks drew an average of 7,392 fans to Tucson Electric Park this spring, but Kendrick said home attendance likely would increase 50 percent if the team were based in the Phoenix area. He also said many Valley-based clubs don't bring all of their stars to games in Tucson, depriving teams and fans there of the best competition.

Colorado, which lost in the World Series last year, had the worst average home attendance, 5,182, in this year's Cactus League. The team has had the league's worst average home attendance for each of the past four years.

The White Sox had the league's second-worst home attendance, 5,820, according to spring-training records. The Chicago Cubs were the best draw, averaging 12,085 fans in Mesa's Hohokam Stadium.

The people of Tucson have already spoken. Reality is that every professional baseball team playing games in Tucson is better off elsewhere, and every one of them knows it.

Finally! Get those teams all in the same town, better games, easier travel.

Even further condensing the Cactus League.

What's interesting to me is that the last couple years I've been to spring training in Arizona, the drives have become significantly worse, with godawful midday traffic at the end of games. It isn't nearly as convenient to stay in Mesa (which we do because of the Cubs, and it's relative proximity to the Angels' camp in Tempe) and get around to some of the other parks as it used to be even four years ago, or go back to the hotel from the parks.

But it sure beats Florida from what I can tell.

scareduck, assuming the 202 ever gets completed (a bunch of whiners who built houses along the expected route are delaying it) that will give a third freeway to skip the 10 through downtown, which should help considerably in getting to the various stadiums.

But yeah, traffic is getting worse. I laugh nearly every morning as I drive my three miles to work, passing over the freeway, and seeing the traffic backed up. Before the real estate crash, a lot of people got houses way the heck away from their jobs, and now are upset about how much they are spending on gas.

Even further condensing the Cactus League.

What's interesting to me is that the last couple years I've been to spring training in Arizona, the drives have become significantly worse, with godawful midday traffic at the end of games. It isn't nearly as convenient to stay in Mesa (which we do because of the Cubs, and it's relative proximity to the Angels' camp in Tempe) and get around to some of the other parks, or go back to the hotel from the parks.

But it sure beats Florida from what I can tell.

assuming the 202 ever gets completed
The grand opening for that freeway is slated for the 5th of Never.
As for the Cactus League, I once heard Marana (N of Tucson on I-10) was interested in building a stadium. That might be enough for the Tucson folks, but I can't imagine a new ballpark being built in this economic climate.

The grand opening for that freeway is slated for the 5th of Never.

That annoys me. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the South Mountain Freeway, but when I moved here in '99 I found out within a month or so that the expected route of the freeway was along Pecos Blvd. But the main opposition of the freeway is among people who built $300k homes after that, who are acting surprised that a freeway could be built there, pretending that they didn't do due diligence on such an investment. Instead, they want to find a way to force Gila River to accept it.

I can't imagine a new ballpark being built in this economic climate.


No, the funding that basically ended with the new Dodgers/White Sox stadium only passed because Las Vegas was a credible threat to take spring training away from Arizona. That no longer is the case, so the legislature didn't even give Tucson the opportunity to create a new tax district to build or improve on spring training stadiums.

Once the White Sox are allowed to move, spring training in Tucson is dead. It just doesn't make sense for teams to play in a far smaller metro area than Phoenix, with a vastly longer drive to most of the games.

When I was working part-time in the Salt River Project archives while going to grad school at SAU in the early '80s, I could look out the office window & see the A's going through spring training drills & such. Good times.

Haven't been in the area since moving back to Arkansas in 5/84. Traffic these days sounds ridiculous.