Greater Tucson, with a population of more than a million, will likely lose Major League spring training baseball, along with lots of worldwide publicity and a $30 million annual boost to the local economy.
That would end a tradition that began in 1947, when Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians, decided to train in Arizona. He persuaded the New York Giants to come along.
The Indians left Tucson for Florida in 1993 but were replaced by the Colorado Rockies. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox came here in 1998 to open Tucson Electric Park.
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A dozen teams now train in Arizona, and more will join them next year.
Local spring training, though, seems about to join two college football bowls, a ladies’ professional golf tournament, a Pacific Coast League baseball team, a minor league basketball team, a pro volleyball team, a pro women’s softball team and three or four pro hockey teams on a list of sports and events that have tried Tucson and either folded or gone elsewhere.
Unlike most of the others, spring training could have survived here if Pima County and the City of Tucson had paid more attention to the White Sox, Diamondbacks and Rockies while working hard to land a fourth team.
But instead of celebrating the three teams’ presence and trying to build on it, local officials merely tolerated them.
The White Sox plan to train next year in Glendale at a new stadium they’ll share with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Rockies will also seek a Phoenix-area home, and the Diamondbacks are discussing a possible move to the Gila Indian Reservation. Those deals aren’t sealed, but Tucson and Pima County haven’t done enough to keep them here.
When the White Sox announced their move to Glendale, county officials insisted the stadium contract wouldn’t let the team leave until 2013. So, they didn’t look very hard for a replacement.
They were wrong.
When the buyers of the Class AAA Tucson Sidewinders said they would move them to Reno next year, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry declared they wouldn’t be missed. By saying the county could make more money holding a few summer rock concerts, he didn’t please the baseball world.
The Rockies asked last year for improvements the city had promised them at Hi Corbett Field, plus others so major and minor league players could work out here seven or eight months a year. Tucson officials said they didn’t have any money.
Jack Camper, David Cohen, Tom Tracy, Ben Buehler-Garcia, Dan Schneider, Dave Sitton, Mike Feder and many other Tucson businesspeople offered last fall to help meet the Rockies’ needs, but City Manager Mike Hein asked them to wait. He said the city was working with the Legislature to get money for Hi Corbett Field.
When the Rockies and Diamondbacks arrived to train in February, they said they wanted two more teams training here so they wouldn’t have to make so many bus trips to the Phoenix area.
Neither Tucson nor the county made that a priority. City officials went to a Rockies game or two, but only Councilwoman Shirley Scott attended a community appreciation reception for the three teams. All five county supervisors skipped it.
By the time Tucson businesspeople began to work with legislative leaders on a bill creating a Pima County Sports and Tourism Authority, the session was almost over.
Huckelberry, who was praised for encouraging formation of the authority, inexplicably helped kill the idea by telling a reporter the county couldn’t afford to pay for an election for voters to approve or reject the idea.
The House passed the bill, but the Senate adjourned without acting. Now it will take a miracle to keep spring training in the Old Pueblo.
In a future column, I’ll discuss a few possibilities.
Contact Steve Emerine or e-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Emerine, a Tucson resident since 1960, has run Steve Emerine Strategic Public Relations since 1994. He is a former local newspaper reporter, editor and columnist and served as Pima County Assessor from 1973 to 1980. He is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to noon weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.
Comments
Phil wrote on Jul 8, 2008 11:48 AM:
The White Sox are moving not because of inadequate facilities or poor attendance. They are moving because the owner wants the the team to play closer to his winter home in Phoenix. Of course the city of Glendale facilitated this move.
I submit that any proposed tax on residents to support spring training will be soundly defeated, especially in the current ecomomic environment. "
James Mason wrote on Jul 7, 2008 10:22 AM:
steve emerine wrote on Jul 6, 2008 2:10 PM:
Thanks for reading and for asking the question.
I keep harping on it because I can't believe that if Tucson was big enough and had enough foresight to support spring training in 1947, when the population was about 50,000, it isn't big enough and farsighted enough to realize the economic, recreational and prestigious aspects of retaining it in 2009 and beyond.
We're the only city in America with three MLB spring training teams, and if we don't mobilize, we'll go from three to none.
How can we compete for industry, tourists and other money generators if our desirability index is going down while other cities are showing many more signs of life?
-- steve "
Eric wrote on Jul 5, 2008 9:44 PM:
Clearly there isn't much of a market for this. Yet you want the government to add more subsidies on top of the subsidies we they have already given them. The people of Tucson are clearly not into spring training, let it rest in peace. "
Very Disappointed Citizen wrote on Jul 4, 2008 7:51 AM:
I love Tucson, but living here is and will continue to be a disappointment when there are so few sporting events to attend. The loss of revenue from Spring Training Baseball will put this city back another decade!
WAKE UP City and County Leadership and do something about this! "