Celebrity Autographs And Celebrity Addresses

Baseball oasis

At spring training in Arizona, you won't care if you ever get back

By Eric Noland, Travel Editor

TEMPE, Ariz. - Every pitcher feels capable of winning 20 games, or saving 40. Batters tee off on softly thrown practice pitches and fantasize about hitting over .300. Outfielders fly across the grass on legs freshened by four months of winter rest.
And every single team has a record of zero wins and zero losses, with the brightest prospects for storming through the season toward the World Series.

This is what makes baseball spring training so appealing for players and fans alike: hope that truly springs eternal.

Tuning up for the Major League Baseball season under Arizona's brilliantly sunny skies, with craggy brown buttes providing a backdrop, only enhances the effect.

The Angels will be one of a dozen teams participating in the Cactus League this year - but the only member of the circuit that made an appearance in baseball's playoffs last fall. It's the pervasive optimism of clubs like this - perhaps of duplicating its championship magic of 2002? - that is the fan's gain.

"I think the beauty of spring training is the laid-back atmosphere," said Angels spokesman Larry Babcock. "Access to the players is easier. They're not nearly as intense because it's spring training, so getting an autograph or talking to a player is easier.

"Obviously the ballparks are small, so there's just great appeal to being that close to the action. People are out there from the Midwest to get away from the snow. Kids come out at spring break. You're sitting out there in the sun, watching baseball with not a care in the world."

You certainly won't be alone, though. In recent years, greater Phoenix has grown in popularity with pro baseball teams and the fans who trail after them. In the last seven years, three new ballpark complexes have opened and four teams have moved their spring operations here. In 2002, attendance at Cactus League games topped 1 million for the first time, and it's stayed up there ever since.

Fans will find all of this extremely convenient. Unlike in Florida, where vast distances separate teams, mandating long drives for fans, spring training in Arizona is fairly compact. The Angels train in Tempe, the Chicago Cubs in Mesa, the San Francisco Giants in Scottsdale, the Oakland A's and Milwaukee Brewers in Phoenix, the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners in Peoria, and the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers in Surprise.

In Tucson, 117 miles south of Phoenix, are the camps of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Chicago White Sox and the Colorado Rockies.

That means a fan concentrating on the Phoenix area can readily roam and see multiple teams in a single day.

Maybe you start the day in Peoria, watching the Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki take his lightning swings in a batting cage. Then you walk to an adjacent field at the same complex and see Rockies sensation Jeff Francis pitch a "B" game against a collection of Padres minor-leaguers. After that, it's only a 45-minute drive across town to Mesa for a 1 p.m. Cubs game. Once the final out is recorded, there is plenty of time to hop over to Scottsdale for one of the league's infrequent night games - and the hope of seeing the Giants' Barry Bonds stroke a home run onto North 75th Street.

Avid fans of one team, of course, can concentrate their attentions on that bunch. In the case of the Angels, the setup at Tempe Diablo Stadium is particularly friendly to visitors, in that the practice fields for the veteran players are on site.

Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report on Feb. 16, with workouts beginning the next day. The position players are due in on Feb. 21, with full-squad practices starting on the 22nd. Games don't begin until March 3, so these first couple of weeks of spring training are a good time to watch the drills up close.

Players change into their uniforms at a clubhouse in the main stadium, but many of them participate in morning workouts at three fields nearby, which requires them to walk across the parking lot. Team officials, to give the players a little bit of privacy, construct a 500-foot walkway of light barriers, but fans may line up along this gauntlet in hopes of getting an autograph, snapping a picture or engaging a favorite player in some conversation. Players tend to be more receptive when they're returning to the clubhouse after their morning work is done.

The main field is also used for workouts - in February and again during the Cactus League season on days when the Angels aren't playing a home game.

"Fans can sit right behind home plate and watch (manager) Mike Scioscia do catching instruction and work on pop-ups," said stadium coordinator Wil Gorman. "If fans can't come out to games, practice can be a lot of fun."

But attending a spring training game is a special experience.

To begin with, the stadiums are intimate - 7,285 seats at Tempe Diablo - which puts fans right on top of the action. For those put off by the soaring cost of tickets during the regular season, it is also remarkably affordable - $5 for parking, $15 for a field box, and something different: $5 for a ticket to the grassy slope beyond the outfield wall.

Out here, fans may sit on blankets, catch a few rays and let their kids run wild. Some 2,500 tickets are available for this area, many of which are sold on the day of the game to families and college kids. (No lawn chairs or umbrellas are permitted out here, due to the prospect of blocking someone else's view of the game, according to Gorman.)

Spectators who aren't keen on enduring nine innings of full sunshine - and it can be intense in Arizona even in March - will find the stadium's shadiest spots behind home plate and down the first base and right field lines.

Once they've settled in for the action, fans not familiar with the spring routine might be in for some surprises. Specifically: Neither team has any special imperative to win the game.

These exhibitions are conducted solely for the purpose of getting the players ready for the real season - when wins, losses, standings and stats are meticulously tabulated. And no one is inclined to rush the process.

Early in the Cactus League schedule, a starting pitcher might only work two innings before sitting down. Then he might be relieved by another starting pitcher, who also works only two innings. Next to the mound might be the team's top relief pitcher - working not in the ninth inning, with the game on the line, but here in the fifth.

Position players, meanwhile, might only be in the lineup for three or four innings before giving way to some eager rookie. And don't be surprised, after the game, to discover that your favorite star player is no longer in the house, having changed clothes and headed back to the team hotel after his stint was completed.

This can be perplexing to the uninitiated. Bartolo Colon of the Angels might open a game working three perfect innings, with six strikeouts. Just when the crowd starts getting excited about whether he can keep it going, in comes some unknown minor-leaguer who gets rocked for three home runs.

"I remember five, six years ago, we no-hit the Giants with six different pitchers," said Babcock. "It was just because guys had gotten their work in and you just didn't want to push them."

At least there's little danger of you paying $15 for that box seat only to watch a bunch of no-name kids take the field. Major League Baseball has urged teams to use at least half the members of their presumptive starting lineup at the beginning of spring training games.

Another way to catch your favorite team is to follow it on the road, buying a ticket to see the Angels play at the home stadium of the Brewers or Rangers or A's or Cubs - or perhaps making the drive to Tucson for a game there. Also, teams will play a handful of split-squad games during the spring, sending one group of players across town and retaining another group to play at the home stadium.

It's difficult to find out in advance how the team will be divided up in these instances, but here's one rule of thumb to consider: The big-name players aren't generally keen about going on the road in spring training, even if it just means a half-hour ride to the west side of Phoenix.

After an Angels home game, food, drink and fun await just a few blocks away in Tempe's "Mill" district - a six-block stretch of Mill Avenue from Rio Salado Parkway to University Drive, right on the edge of Arizona State University.

For lodging convenience, meanwhile, you can't beat the Wyndam Buttes Resort, which is a Vladimir Guerrero blast to dead left field, built literally into the brown-rock face of pointy Tempe Butte. It's a short walk from the hotel to the stadium, and there is prime viewing of the game from the sun deck off the hotel's 6000 Wing.

Down on that playing field, the white uniforms gleam, muscles feel limber, and everyone is poised for the season of his life. Because this is a special time in the baseball calendar.

As Charles d'Orleans put it, "Gentle spring, in sunshine clad, well dost thy power display!"

D'Orleans was a French poet in the 15th century. Word has it he was pretty good at turning on the inside fastball.

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Eric Noland, (818) 713-3681, eric.noland@dailynews.com ------


ANGELS SPRING TRAINING
GETTING THERE: Tempe Diablo Stadium is at 2200 W. Alameda Drive (enter off 48th Street).
TICKETS: For the Cactus League schedule and ticket information, go to www.angels baseball.com and click on "Tickets." The Angels' 15-game home schedule in Arizona runs from March 3 to March 30. First home game: March 3 vs. San Francisco, 1:05 p.m. Tickets are priced from $5 to $15 and may be purchased on the team Web site, at the Tempe Diablo Stadium box office (beginning Saturday) or through Ticketmaster. For the latter, visit www.ticketmaster.com; in Phoenix, call (480) 784-4444.