Archive for March 31st, 2010

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The Rockies will play the final Cactus League games at Hi Corbett Field this week and then move to Scottsdale next year. And when they do, spring training will become just a little more corporate.

Hi Corbett has been home to spring training since 1947, but few players are shedding tears about saying adios. "It's old, very old," Colorado first baseman Todd Helton said, trying his very best to come up with a non-derogatory description. "Yeah, a good way to describe it is very old."

Yes, it is, and that's what I like about the place. Hi Corbett feels more like the way spring training once was, when a team's objective was to get overweight players back in shape after a winter peddling insurance rather than to sell $30 "premium date" tickets, $8.50 beers and $40 souvenir shirts to wealthy fans vacationing from Chicago. Don't get me wrong -- spring training still is a wonderful time, and every fan should enjoy its many pleasures at least once (every date is a "premium date" when you're layering on sunscreen while watching a Cactus or Grapefruit League game instead of shoveling snow). But as teams gouge taxpayers to build ever more lavish new "complexes," spring training not only becomes a little more big league; it becomes a little less personable and a little less accessible.

Tim Sheridan While Hi Corbett may not have the amenities of a modern complex, it oozes the essence of baseball.

Hi Corbett, however, is as old-school as a flannel uniform. Set amid Tucson's Gene C. Reid Park, the stadium is surrounded by a golf course (the Braves really should have trained here), a zoo (the only one in baseball outside of the bleachers at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park), picnic areas, walking paths, ponds and very public spaces. On a recent Sunday, you could see the Rockies warming up on one field, a dozen or so people performing Tai Chi beneath a small grove of trees a few yards away and a father and son playing catch just behind them.

It was so wonderfully pastoral that Georges Seurat should have painted the scene -- "Sunday in the Park with Jorge De La Rosa."

"You don't feel like it's a moneymaking venture here," said former pitcher Roy Smith, who trained at Hi Corbett in the 1980s with Cleveland. "The guys are getting ready. You're close [to players]. It's more like a park over there instead of a complex. The fans can get close. That's why I always liked it. It was like that at Vero Beach [Fla.]. It has some of the aspects of the Vero Beach when the Dodgers were there."

Unlike at other facilities where the fans are fenced off from the players, the home clubhouse at Hi Corbett leads directly into a public area, requiring players to either come in contact with fans or never leave the stadium. And many of them are very willing to sign autographs. Not just a couple signatures, but autograph after autograph.

"The fans are right on top of you," Helton said in an approving tone. "They have more access to you coming in and out. That's good on some days, bad on others."

Hi Corbett is not only figuratively a step backward in time, it is also literally backward, with home plate and the batter facing west into the sun. The strange geography is especially noticeable given that there is virtually no shade in the stadium -- a meager roof covers only a very small section of the seats behind home -- which means that the stadium's unofficial slogan is "Always wear sunscreen." With, one longtime fan added, the additional clause that you should also bring cold beer.

You've probably seen Hi Corbett even if you've never been to Tucson because they filmed the spring training scenes for "Major League" here. This gives Hi Corbett the distinction of having both Bob Feller and Charlie Sheen pitch from its mounds.

"That's definitely a unique experience. I never thought of it that way but I had a chance to meet Bob Feller and he's really a neat individual," Rockies starter Aaron Cook said. "I've never had the chance to meet Charlie Sheen, but the chance to pitch on the same mound as a Hall of Famer and a great actor like Charlie Sheen is something that not too many people can say they've done."

Granted, "Major League" made Hi Corbett look pretty rustic, but Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Wesley Snipes still had it better than when Feller and the Indians moved here in 1947. "It did not have a dirt floor, but we had scorpions in the clubhouse," Feller said. "They were in the toes of your shoes. It was very close and very cozy. Not a lot of room but it wasn't that bad. I actually saw worse clubhouses in the major league."

Wait a second. Scorpions? "There were scorpions that would go and hide in the dark part of your shoe," Feller said. "And you had to be careful when you put on your shoes because there might be a scorpion in there and he would come out and sting you. Those little scorpions could nail you pretty good."

Feller was still a Hi Corbett presence long after he retired. Ex-players and writers vividly recall him standing in center field, practicing his pickoff move. He would stand there and look over his shoulder as if checking a runner at first base, then suddenly turn and fire the ball to the fence. He was doing that, mind you, when he was in his 70s.

All of this is what gives Hi Corbett its character. And it's what's missing from so many of the new spring facilities. They're all very nice and useful for teams, but they're also like the multipurpose, cookie-cutter stadiums built in the '60s and '70s. They all look alike. Peoria resembles Surprise, which resembles Goodyear, which resembles Jupiter. Stand in front of a Dippin' Dots stand or wait in line for an $8 cheeseburger and, like Milton Bradley, you may not be sure exactly which team you're with that day.

Colorado outfielder Jay Payton said he heard the Rockies' new facility in north Scottsdale (which they'll share with the Diamondbacks) will have a portable workout room that can be wheeled outside when the weather is nice. Great. Good to know the players can work on their bench press and their tans at the same time.

The Cubs, meanwhile, are threatening to move from Mesa unless the city agrees to more than $100 million in upgrades to their camp. The funding proposal would add another fee to rental car taxes that already are at 50 percent -- my car cost $344 for nine days and the taxes were $175 -- plus an 8 percent tax on every ticket to every game their rival teams play in Arizona (White Sox fans will be thrilled to pay money to the Cubs to see their team play in its own stadium). Few things upset me in sports anymore, but owners who blackmail communities into building them new stadiums (and then hypocritically bitch about government "socialism") still make me turn so red in the face I look like Chief Wahoo.

I mean, come on. The Cubs need a $100 million makeover in this economy? In a state that has been hit about as hard as any by the recession? For a spring training site? Really? Get real. There are 14 other teams in Arizona -- including a Chicago team that has won the World Series in the past five years, let alone the past century -- and fans will be only too happy to go see them instead if the Cubs move.

I say let the Cubs leave. Better yet, have them move to Hi Corbett, a beautiful ballpark that will be available next spring. It may not have a portable fitness room or a high-priced steakhouse, but it was plenty good enough to send a team to the World Series in its second year of spring training (Cleveland in 1948) and another one in its 60th (Colorado in 2007). The Cubs are too pigheaded and greedy to take advantage of this opportunity, but a couple Japanese teams are considering moving their camps to Tucson.

It's easy to see why. Hi Corbett has the sort of appeal that extends across oceans and beyond generations. Whether you're a 10-year-old Little Leaguer, a faux "Major Leaguer" or an aging Hall of Famer, the park provides such a spring training feel that you just have to pick up a baseball and see how hard you can throw it.