Baseball, often fondly referred to as America’s favorite pastime, has been around for over 150 years. Despite having been invented in 1839, the concept of spring training (or training in sites other than a team’s regular game sites) for major league baseball only began gaining traction in the 1890’s. By 1910, however, it had become trend amongst most teams, and only continued to grow from there. Currently, the only two spring training leagues in operation are the Grapefruit League, stationed in Florida, and the Cactus League, located in Arizona. Fifteen teams make up the Cactus League, from the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Within those fifteen teams, two are proud to call the suburban city of Mesa their home: the Chicago Cubs and the Oakland A’s. 

The original Hohokam Stadium was built in 1976 and was the spring training stadium of the Chicago Cubs from 1979 to 1996. The stadium, named after the mysterious Hohokam people who inhabited the area from about 1 A.D. to the middle of the 15th century, was demolished and rebuilt from the ground up in 1996. The new facility adopted the same name as the previous stadium, but was often known as Dwight Patterson Stadium as well. The Cubs remained at Hohokam Stadium until the 2014 season, when the Sloan Park Stadium was completed and Hohokam Stadium was closed for renovations to make way for the Oakland A’s, who had just signed a twenty-year agreement to take the Cubs place. 

While Hohokam Stadium has been in Mesa for decades, Sloan Park is considered relatively new. It was opened for the Chicago Cubs in 2014, after they committed to the facility by signing a thirty-year contract, with the option for another twenty still on the table. Sloan Park is the largest spring training stadium built yet, surpassing the Chicago White Sox’s Camelback Ranch training stadium, the Cubs very own rival team from their home city. The Cactus League broke the spring training attendance record in 2017, with more than 1.9 millions fans attending in total. This was largely attributed to the Cubs, who drew in a record number of 251,899 fans in seventeen games and averaged around 14,800 guests in a stadium that holds only 15,000. The new and improved training stadium improved the Cubs performance immensely, leading them to win the World Series for the first time in 108 years. 

Baseball has been a typical staple in the average American household for over 150 years. It has become one of the favorite sports in America, and the pastime that the country is most associated with. Fans are fierce in their defense of the sport, and players take the game as though it were gospel. In order to please their fans, Major League players spend countless hours practicing for the new season in their spring training stadiums, reserved especially for their team. The Cactus League has been providing an exciting environment for fans and a helpful and constructive environment for players for over 100 years, and will no doubt be around to provide entertainment for many more years to come.