You may not care that a spring training ballpark serves higher-quality grub or is especially good for getting player autographs, for example. Two things I don’t consider: price (why should a facility receive demerits because fans are willing to pay more?) or player amenities (this is about the fan experience).Įven with rigor, there’s subjectivity involved. From setting, exterior architecture, and interior visuals to seating proximity, concourses, concessions, and autograph accessibility, I look at the totality of what the ballpark has to offer. The criteria by which I rate ballparks is briefly outlined in the linked piece above, but I’ll just say I try to be as comprehensive as possible in evaluating all aspects of the fan experience.
Glendale’s Camelback Ranch has a particularly crowd-pleasing setup where fans can meander through immaculately landscaped practice fields.Ĭonsidering my passion for the spring training experience, I ranked, rated, and reviewed all spring ballparks in a lengthy and detailed piece a couple of years ago.īut with not much demand for long-form journalism covering such a niche topic-indeed, that piece was the length of a novella-I’m often asked to just summarize my favorite and least favorite part of each training complex. Such a collective influx of sporting cultures to one region is unparalleled in sports and what I personally find most remarkable about spring training. In Arizona, you can sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” with Cubs fans, watch the Sausage Race with Brewers fans, and eat a Dodger Dog with Dodger fans all within 30 minutes of each other. In Florida, you can see the Yankees’ mini-Monument Park at Steinbrenner Field and the Red Sox Green Monster at JetBlue Park only hours apart. There’s something incredibly cool about teams importing their particular regional tastes, local flairs, local fans, and various signature elements all to one region.
Only in spring training baseball can you see 15 MLB teams play in one region, or in the case of Arizona, 15 in one metropolitan area! Historically, spring training provides for lower ticket prices, better sightlines, sold-out crowds, laid-back atmospheres, and unencumbered access to players in unusually quaint situations, but often with amenities resembling those at MLB parks such as varied concessions, destination bars, social spaces, party decks, and kids’ play areas.īeyond the relatively high and renewed quality of the venues, spring training baseball is also especially conducive to comparing teams and ballparks. It’s just so unique in sports to have a separate pre-season venue that is in many ways better for experiencing the sport than the primary venue. Some seasons, I might even make it to every spring training complex.
I’ve taken the annual pilgrimage south every season for over 20 years since I was a child, and I’ve been to most spring training venues in Arizona and Florida over 10 times. While I attend ballgames all over the country, spring training is always the highlight of my year. For those interested in how Covid has impacted spring training, I’d point you to this excellent 2021 USA Today Spring Training Preview by Graham Knight and Joe Mock.įor the diehard baseball fan-the true autograph-seeking, scorecard-keeping generalist who bucks the more localized fandom that’s defined the game in the last 15 years-spring training can’t be beat. This piece might be of interest to those select spring training fanatics particularly excited to finally return to the ballpark after a year out of action, but it does not especially focus on Covid restrictions. MaNote: For obvious reasons, 2021 spring training will be unlike any year before.
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