It wasn’t 20 years ago that the Cactus League was hanging on for dear life. With 20 teams in Florida and only 8 in Arizona, there was legitimate concern that the days of playing in dry desert warmth were coming to an end. With the Dodgers finally escaping Vero Beach and both Ohio teams now camping out in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear, there are now 15 teams in the Cactus League, making for complete parity with the Grapefruit League. And if you ask around, you might get the sense that Arizona is much better. The teams aren’t as spread out as they are on the other coast, which makes travel for teams and fans a veritable picnic.
Even with the addition of teams to the Cactus League, the league has consolidated considerably. Only three years ago, three teams were in Tucson. Now there are none. The Padres called Yuma home for 25 years and the Angels springed in Palm Springs for over 30. All 15 Arizona teams are at worst 40 minutes away from each other, many within only a few minutes of each other.
This concentration of teams is largely due to teams like the Reds and Indians sharing facilities. Right now there are only 10 ballparks among the 15 teams in the league. The five shared ballparks are fairly new, with three of them coming in the last three years for over $100 million each. The five teams who have ballparks to themselves (A’s, Giants, Cubs, Angels, Brewers) are in the oldest parks, though HoHoKam and Maryvale are less than 15 years old and the other three have undergone some amount of renovation in the last decade. In a couple years the Cubs are set to move from the middle of Mesa to the western city limit near Tempe/ASU, which brings them even closer to the other teams.
Developing a ballpark is like building a scaled down version of a normal major league ballpark. A park typically holds 10,000 seats, much of them bleachers. Flanking many of the newer facilities are entire complexes with large indoor training centers and 4-8 baseball diamonds. Being in an old facility situation, the Cubs were dissatisfied with Fitch Park, only a few blocks south of Hohokam. The new plan has the ballpark colocated with the training facilities and a Cubs-themed village of sorts, all next to a lake stocked with catfish and trout. The final price of all of this is guaranteed to be well above $100 million and probably closer to $200 million.
Wrigleyville West rendering (source: East Valley Tribune)
At the other end of the spectrum is the A’s. Despite being wooed by developers to consider a move to the new Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Lew Wolff chose to stick with the City of Phoenix and the A’s longtime home, Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Wolff has been trying for some time to work with the City and Mayor Phil Gordon on renovations to Muni, going so far as to offer to pay for it upfront as long as the city pays the A’s back over time. Wolff considers the $30 million pricetag on Muni renovations chump change – not the best choice of words but an apt description compared to the other mostly taxpayer-funded facilities.
Like the Cubs and Giants, the A’s have a split facility. Muni is at the south end of Papago Park, while the training facility and practice fields are at the north end more than a mile away. Wolff and the front office apparently like this arrangement, so no need to scope out a new site. There’s no denying that Muni is long in the tooth:
Wolff, though, said he’s hardly looking for a total reconstruction of the A’s current Spring Training site. He’d like to tear down and rebuild the blockhouse of an office and clubhouse building at Papago Park and make significant upgrades to Phoenix Muni, which was opened in 1964. The infrastructure of that yard is crumbling as evidenced by a water pipe break this week that flooded some of the A’s clubhouse offices.
Sounds familiar. At least Phoenix didn’t ruin Muni by sticking a huge triple-decked football stand in the outfield. Next year I expect to head out to Phoenix to catch some games while my brother is still going to school at ASU. By then I hope that Wolff and Gordon have hammered out a deal, because if they haven’t Wolff will have to start all over again with a new mayor. I prefer being able to fly into PHX and take the new light rail line from near the airport to the station near Papago to catch a game before settling in. No other Cactus League park is near transit the way Muni is. If Wolff and Gordon can’t strike a deal, there isn’t anywhere for Wolff to look, so it would be yet another year of staying at a decaying stadium in a nice climate. If the familiarity with obsolescence breeds contempt, Wolff must be feeling like Phil Connors right about now.
newballpark.org 
I had never seen Phoenix Muni until last year when I went to spring training for the first time (I’m going again this year). And I must say, even in it’s “old decaying” state it’s actually a very nice ballpark. It does scream 1960’s styling, but not necessarily in a bad way (more like a small Dodger Stadium than Coliseum). And frankly from a fan perspective, it’s head and shoulders above the Coliseum not just due to the intimacy, but because it’s just in far better shape all around. Combine one of the best outfield views in the Cactus League (probably one of the reasons Wolff doesn’t want to move) and the experience at Phoenix Muni is still a great place to take in a game (and I say this after having visited Tempe Diablo and Camelback Ranch too).
Frankly I feel bad for our guys, they come up through the minor league system playing AAA games at Raley Field which is a beautiful park in its own right with the second largest crowds in minor league baseball. Then they get their first invite to spring training at aging but still very nice Phoenix Muni. But when they make the show… often times in the latter part of a season during September, and they end up playing at the Coliseum. With it’s dead outfield grass, crap neighborhood, substandard facilities underneath, and of course the view of at best 30,000 empty seats and tarps (usually more like 50,000 empty seats with crowds that Raley Field could rival)… I think last year when I visited Raley and Phoenix for the first time was when I decided the Coliseum was done. It needs to go, be it Diridon or Victory Court.
hopefully within the next decade the a’s players and fans will be in state of the art new venues both for spring training and for regular season home games.
wonder if phx muni stadium if it’s renovated will have seats behond the OF walls which they don’t have now. love to see an area where fans can catch hr balls.
Perhaps the renovation deal with Phoenix Muni could include some of the same technological ideas Cisco has for the Diridon park.
Love those shots of Wrigleyville West. It looks like it would be a great place to spend the day.