Tucson Electric Park

This is one of the better Spring Training parks in Arizona -- and in fact, I believe it was one of the the top minor-league facilities in the U.S. until it lost the PCL Sidewinders to Reno in 2009.   Certainly, the view from the seats here is among the best of any baseball park.  The lovely, rocky Catalina Mountains are visible from most of the seats, as you can see in the background of the photo below right.  Come to this park and see the great view for yourself. But hurry!

As is the case in Scottsdale, the Southwestern color scheme is gorgeous (see above left) -- although they incorporate more browns and steely blue here than in Scottsdale, where they play up the color green.

My favorite parks in Arizona have trellised overhangs over the seating or concourse areas, and the TEP is no exception.  You can see a little of this blue trellised covering in the photo above.

Sadly for baseball fans in southern Arizona, spring training is about to vacate Tucson all together. First, the White Sox bought out their lease and bolted to Glendale prior to spring training in 2009. Then, TEP's other springtime tenant, the D-backs, announced that they would be joinding the Rockies in a brand-new complex near Scottsdale in 2011. That means that once March 2010 is over, fans will have to travel north to Phoenix to see any exhibition games. That is a shame.

Extremely convenient to Tucson Electric Park is the Lazy-8 Motel, where I've stayed a number of times, and always been extremely pleased.  Their slogan is "Tucson's cleanest budget motel." The room rates are incredibly reasonable and the folks there couldn't be nicer!

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