Tucson Electric Park

This is one of the best Spring Training parks in either Arizona or Florida -- and in fact, I believe it is one of the top minor-league facilities in the U.S. (although, sadly, the Sidewinders of the PCL will be moving 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!

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.

Two teams share this great facility for their Spring exhibition games, as both the White Sox and the Diamondbacks play here. Chicago's Southsiders are trying to get out of their lease here, though, so they can move north to the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. There they would join the Dodgers in a brand new complex. While they'll face difficulties getting out of their lease in Tucson, if they are successful, it could spell the end of spring training in Tucson. The two remaining teams, the D-backs and Rockies, would probably want to move elsewhere if they were the only two clubs still training in south Arizona. That would be 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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