Ready for Spring Training yet?

If you're not, maybe this article by Larry Stone in the Seattle Times this morning will get you going.

Business booming in Cactus League

As you can gather from the headline, the article is not about the teams of the Cactus League. It is about the growth and deveopment of the areas around the Spring Training sites and the wooing of the Los Angeles Dodgers to the area.

Once a lonely, lightly populated enclave when the Mariners and San Diego Padres opened up the first two-team complex in baseball, Peoria is near the hub of a remarkable expansion.

"We're getting lopsided," said John Richardson, executive director of the Peoria Diamond Club and a Cactus League committee member. "It's growing like crazy in the West."

The Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers left Florida's Grapefruit League and moved to Surprise, Ariz., four years ago. Now the area is bracing for another influx.

The Cleveland Indians, who long trained in Tucson but moved to Winter Haven, Fla., in 1993, are moving back to Arizona. They have signed an agreement to move into a new facility in Goodyear, Ariz., perhaps as soon as the spring of 2008.

Glendale, which borders Peoria to the south and already houses new facilities for the NHL Coyotes and NFL Cardinals, is working out the final details to land the Los Angeles Dodgers.
...
The Dodgers plan to partner with the Chicago White Sox in a new two-team facility in Glendale. The most optimistic hope is for that to happen in 2009. However, that is problematic because the White Sox are tied contractually to Tucson, where they share a facility with the Arizona Diamondbacks, until 2012.

"Do the Dodgers make sense? Immensely. It's not a done deal, however," said Robert Brinton, vice president of the Cactus League, as well as executive director of the Mesa Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"I think it will become a done deal."

The Dodgers may decide to wait until -- because of the difficulty of getting the White Sox out of Tucson. The Sox would have to pay Pima County a penalty reportedly as high as $20 million if they vacate Tucson without arranging for a new team to take their place.

The Dodgers story is for the future. What about right now? What team is tops of the CL?

Even without the new teams, story lines abound in the Cactus League this spring. More focus than usual will be on the Chicago Cubs, who annually sell out HoHoKam Park in Mesa and have the added appeal of new manager Lou Piniella and a host of free agents, including Alfonso Soriano.

"The Cubs, Giants and Mariners are the teams that drive the Cactus League," said Brinton. "They are the three top attendance teams every year, and No. 4 is far behind."

The season is almost here.