When Bill Veeck signed Larry Doby to his Cleveland basebal team, it was training in Florida. To escape the harsh racism of the South, Veeck moved his team to Tucson. With that move, Veeck helped launch the Cactus League.
Veeck was credited as the founding father of the Cactus League and he convinced the New York Giants to move to Phoenix as well, beginning a spring training tradition in Arizona, which still continues today.
“March is historically a busy time in Tucson,” says Anthony Gimino, Pima County’s communications coordinator and a longtime sportswriter. “Spring training was part of the fabric of Tucson for so many years.”
Cleveland and the New York Giants made history playing the first official Cactus League game on March 8, 1947, when the Giants beat Cleveland 3-1 at Randolph Park.
In 1951, the Yankees and the Giants swapped spring training facilities for one year, bringing legends Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle to spring training.
The Giants played their games at Old Phoenix Municipal Stadium and New Phoenix Municipal Stadium from 1947 to 1981. At the time, spring training operations were far simpler.
“In the concourse behind the press box, there is a little stone building,” James Vujs, director of Phoenix Municipal Stadium says. “This was the original building. It was ticketing, it was operations, it was maintenance. And that’s all you needed 62 years ago to run spring training. If you look at the building, you can see the original ticket windows are still there.”
The Cubs became the third Cactus League team in 1951, playing at Rendezvous Park in Mesa.
Following Bill Veeck’s move to Tucson, a steady stream of major league teams established spring training homes in Arizona, marking the rapid expansion of the Cactus League. In February of 1998, the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks moved into the newly opened Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium which at the time was called Tucson Electric Park.
Over time, as new teams joined the Cactus League, not only the way that the facilities operated changed, but where teams played became a big factor as teams began to centralize in the Phoenix area, leaving Tucson.
“You can tell over the years as major league players grew bigger salaries and grew more important and had more say, you knew those superstars hated that bus ride down to Tucson,” Gimino says. “It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but they just didn’t like hopping on that bus two hours each way.”
On March 31, 1992, the team that paved the way for the Cactus League played its final game, defeating the Chicago Cubs 8-2. Cleveland returned to Florida for 1993 spring training, playing at Chains of Lakes Park in Winter Haven.
By 2007, the Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox were the only teams to train in Tucson as an inevitable exit to the Valley loomed over their heads.
“There was just so much history that I guess maybe you have to be of a certain age,” Gimino says. “But to think that one time Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, all the parade of Hall of Famers that came through here in the 50s, 60s and even through the 90s.”
On March 27, 2008, the White Sox played their final game in Tucson, losing to the Diamondbacks 8-4 in front of over 7,000 fans.
“The agreement had been settled, in 2008 I think we knew the White Sox wanted to leave, and then the Diamondbacks and Rockies. The writing was on the wall,” Gimino says.
The Diamondbacks and the Rockies played the final spring training game on March 31, 2010, at Hi Corbett Field, ending a run that spanned more than six decades.
“It’s something Tucson residents seem to miss,” Gimino says. “Some of the older timers in town seem to miss that spring training atmosphere.”
By 2012, all 15 Cactus League teams had centralized in the Valley, leaving behind the place where the Cactus League was born.
“I don’t think spring training is what it is today, without Tucson at the table very early on, being a welcoming party, and being open-minded to how that’s going to transition to the greater good,” Blake Eager, executive director of Southern Arizona Sports Tourism, & Film Authority says. “I don’t think the Cactus League and the Grapefruit League exist without Tucson.”
Insider Takeaways
- Tucson played a foundational role in launching the Cactus League, thanks to Bill Veeck relocating Cleveland to escape segregation in Florida.
- Spring training in Arizona once revolved heavily around Tucson before teams gradually centralized in the Phoenix area.
- Legends like Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Satchel Paige all passed through Tucson during its peak baseball era.
- Player preferences and logistics, especially long bus rides, quietly drove the shift away from Tucson to the Valley.
- By 2012, every Cactus League team had relocated to the Phoenix area, closing the chapter on Tucson’s six-decade run as a spring training hub.
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
