After a 60-year residency, the Los Angeles Dodgers will leave Vero Beach, Fla., in five weeks. After a nearly 90-year stay interrupted only by a three-year break during World War II, the Cincinnati Reds are negotiating to leave Florida. After a 16-year hiatus in Florida, the Cleveland Indians are planning to return whence they came.
That would be Arizona, geographical destination of baseball’s mass migration for spring training. It’s a development that would have been someone’s spring fantasy a couple of decades ago.
“Ten, 15 years ago, people were worrying that the Cactus League was dying,” Commissioner Bud Selig said.
Fifteen years ago, depending on how and when the teams were counted, Arizona was the spring training state for six to eight teams. When the Dodgers and the Indians relocate there next year, and if the Reds reach an agreement in their exclusive 75-day negotiating period to join the Indians at their new facility, spring training will be equally divided — 15 teams in Florida, 15 in Arizona.
And if the Chicago White Sox can lure a Florida-based team to replace them in Tucson, so they can move north to join the Dodgers in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, site of this year’s Super Bowl, Arizona will claim a majority of major league teams for the first time.
Not bad for a state that was struggling to remain a factor in spring training when the Indians left after the spring of 1992. P. J. de la Montaigne, the Cactus League president, said some teams had escape clauses in their stadium leases that permitted them to leave if the Cactus League population fell below six. Florida cities and Las Vegas were ready to recruit.
But in 1993, the number of teams grew to eight when the expansion Colorado Rockies joined the Cactus League and the California Angels, who had played their exhibition games in Palm Springs, Calif., moved their operation to Tempe, Ariz.
There was another critical development that year — the construction of a two-team complex in Peoria, a suburb northwest of Phoenix. The Seattle Mariners moved there from Tempe in 1993, and the San Diego Padres joined them a year later, abandoning their isolated outpost in Yuma.
The two-team complex became the rage. The White Sox left Florida after 44 years and joined the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks at Tucson Electric Park in 1998. The Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers emigrated from Florida to Surprise, due west of the Peoria park, in 2003.
Now Glendale and Goodyear, suburbs west of Phoenix, are building two-team complexes. The Dodgers, in 2009, and presumably the White Sox soon after, will be the Glendale residents, while the Indians, in 2009, and probably the Reds soon after, will share the Goodyear complex.
No other teams are poised to flee Florida, although the state faces some internal movement. The Tampa Bay Rays expect to move from St. Petersburg to Port Charlotte next spring, and the Baltimore Orioles may leave Fort Lauderdale next year to replace the Dodgers in Vero Beach.
Spring training is a lucrative pastime for its hosts. De la Montaigne said a 2007 survey showed that 61 percent of fans who attended exhibition games in Arizona came from outside the state, and those fans spent $310 million while in the state.
De la Montaigne, Peoria’s parks and recreation director, explained that after the Indians left Tucson following a 46-year residency, the governor, Rose Mofford, created a commission to devise a plan to keep baseball in Arizona.
“Florida has had so much spring training tradition and history,” Selig said, “but Arizona has been very aggressive.”
Using a surtax on rental cars, Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, raised revenue to help build new parks or renovate older ones. That set the tone for subsequent developments.
The Dodgers’ move to Arizona is probably the most stunning development. They have been in Vero Beach since 1948 and have had perhaps the most attractive spring training site in baseball.
“The tradition of Vero Beach is probably unsurpassed in baseball as far as spring training goes,” said Ned Colletti, the Dodgers’ general manager. “Our fan base is concentrated in the southwest part of the country. We thought it would be easier for our fans to see us if we were in the Southwest rather than in the Southeast.”
Colletti also mentioned the shorter distances between teams in Arizona. As teams have left Florida, travel time within the state has increased.
The Dodgers will play their last game at Dodgertown on March 17, then shift to Phoenix and use the Oakland facility after the Athletics leave for Japan, where they will open the season against Boston.
Rather than lament the Dodgers’ departure, Vero Beach officials have pursued a replacement.
“We’re doing an exit agreement and should have it completed by Feb. 19,” Mayor Tom White said. “We already have a team that has signed a commitment and is waiting for Feb. 19 because they have to notify their city.”
White wouldn’t identify the team, but a baseball official said it was the Orioles, who may still stay in Fort Lauderdale if they get the renovations that were supposed to have been made last year. The Federal Aviation Administration owns the land Fort Lauderdale Stadium occupies and has delayed its approval for more than a year.
The southeast coast of Florida once had the Orioles, the Yankees, the Rangers, the Braves and the Expos, all within an hour or so, but now the Orioles are the only team left, and they may be moving north.
The Reds have held spring training in Florida for 83 of the last 86 years. But the city of Sarasota, their home for the last 11 years, has been unable to get the money to build a new park. A referendum last November lost by 115 votes out of about 8,000.
“We’re not giving up,” said Lou Ann Palmer, Sarasota’s mayor.
But two weeks ago the Reds began an exclusive 75-day negotiating period with Goodyear. They are confident they will complete a deal.
“Goodyear was very aggressive in their pursuit of us,” said Rob Butcher, a Reds spokesman. “When our people went out there three or four weeks ago, they were really impressed with the plans for the facility and the people.”
The Indians will be in Goodyear next year. They left Arizona in 1993, planning to train in Homestead, Fla., but Hurricane Andrew got there first and demolished their new complex. They took what was available and have been in antiquated Winter Haven since.
“We were looking for a facility with the potential resources to bridge some payroll and market gaps,” Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro said.
Arizona was happy to provide that facility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/sports/baseball/10chass.html?ref=baseball
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