Cactus League Turned Taxing Situation Into Big Positive

If the Dodgers move their spring home from Florida to Arizona, they ought to thank the Arizona legislature, even though it can do absolutely nothing for the team.

The Cactus League nearly died early in the decade, withering under a Florida drive to recruit every major league team to the Grapefruit League. However, in 1991, long before the Dodgers were a twinkle in Rupert Murdoch’s eye, the Arizona legislature approved a tourist tax that saved the Cactus League.

The tax helped pay for new or renovated stadiums for each of the 10 teams in the league. Officials anticipate an unprecedented one million fans will have attended Cactus League games this spring.

The Dodgers are coming? Not in the wildest dreams of Cactus League officials in 1990, when the Cleveland Indians announced they would defect to the Grapefruit League. The Indians would be the first domino, the Chicago Cubs would be the second, and the Cactus League would promptly collapse, or so feared jittery Arizona officials.

“One or two more announcements would have signaled the end of the league,” Cactus League President Jerry Geiger said.

The departure of the Indians, the team that started the Cactus League in 1947, left the league with seven teams, and only one committed beyond 1995. The Angels signed a 15-year lease with Tempe, Ariz., in 1991 and moved there in 1993, but had a clause allowing the team to escape its lease, should the league fall below six members.

The Cubs, by far the most popular attraction in the Cactus League, listened to lucrative offers from several Florida cities. The Angels had toured sites in Florida. The Seattle Mariners needed a new home. Even the expansion Colorado Rockies, a franchise with a regional fan base extending into Arizona, would not commit to train in the state when they started play in ’93.

“At that point, officials in Florida--from the governor on down--were saying, ‘We don’t know why anybody should be in Arizona. The Indians were first, the Cubs ought to be next and everybody else should follow,’ ” said Joe Garagiola Jr., then the president of the Cactus League and now the general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Florida put its money where its mouth was, providing state funds that cities could use to fulfill a team’s every desire.

No wonder, then, that the Angels fairly drooled on several visits to Florida. The Angels had only three practice fields and no place to play exhibition games in Mesa, Ariz., which meant they had to split spring training between there and the one diamond at their old Palm Springs home.

In stark contrast, the Minnesota Twins had seven diamonds at their new base in Fort Myers, Fla.

And whereas the Indians abandoned Arizona for a lavish $20-million stadium complex in Florida, the Angels generated one proposal in Arizona.

The city of Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix, offered 80 acres and invited the Angels to develop the land at their expense.

“We don’t want to be in the situation of having to spend $10 million to build a stadium,” then-Angel President Richard Brown said. “I’d rather take the $10 million and spend it on player development.”

Said Kevin Uhlich, the Angels’ vice president of ballpark operations, “We really wanted to stay out west. But we wanted to put all our options on the table. Unfortunately, the only options in abundance at that time were in Florida.”

If cities in Florida would construct a training complex at their expense, the Angels didn’t see why they should pay to build one in Gilbert. And, without state assistance, Gilbert could not afford that expense.

That dialogue replayed itself, with different teams and different cities, with disturbing frequency in 1990 and 1991. When the Indians defected to Florida, Cactus League officials impressed upon Arizona legislators that teams threatening to leave the state were not bluffing.

Said Garagiola, “We said, ‘If you were going to go out and recruit an industry to come to Arizona--high profile nationally, very clean environmentally and one that would attract a lot of out-of-state dollars and provide an ongoing benefit to local residents--you’d probably be willing to talk about tax incentives to accomplish that.

‘We already have such an industry in the state. Now we need to do something to keep it.’ ”

Not, however, solely at the expense of residents. The legislature passed--and Gov. Fife Symington signed--a bill allowing counties to levy a $2.50 surcharge on car rentals and spend the proceeds on the renovation and construction of spring training facilities. The tax generated $71 million for six projects in the Phoenix area and funded most of a two-team, $35-million complex in Tucson.

The Cubs stayed. The Angels stayed. The Mariners stayed. The Rockies set up camp in 1993, as did the expansion Diamondbacks in 1998. The Chicago White Sox last year migrated from Florida, the first team to abandon the Grapefruit League for the Cactus League since the Boston Red Sox arrived in Scottsdale in 1959. The Red Sox returned to Florida in 1966.

The thriving Cactus League drew 900,000 last year, up 42% from 1991. Those fans--over half of whom came from outside the state--generated $200 million in spending within Arizona, according to a study commissioned by the league. While many sun-starved tourists would flock to Arizona in March, regardless of baseball, the study did not consider the additional millions generated by teams moving executives, scouts, coaches and nearly 200 major and minor league players per club into the state for six weeks each year.

The financing law required cities to pay a minority share of construction costs. In return, residents enjoy first-rate facilities for youth and adult baseball leagues, concerts, festivals and shows when spring training is not in season.

“These things have become real, 12-months-a-year community assets,” Garagiola said. “These things don’t get used for six weeks and then get a dust cover put over them.”

The tax money has long since been allocated. The Dodgers, should they move to Arizona, will arrive too late to benefit from the tax.

Without the tax, though, the Cactus League might not have survived for the Dodgers to even consider.

“It’s tremendous,” Garagiola said. “The Dodgers would absolutely be a jewel in our crown.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Cactus League Attendance

Each of the 10 Cactus League teams has moved into a new or renovated stadium since 1991, and league attendance has jumped 42%. Still, rainy weather put a damper on the league last spring, and officials expect to top one million in attendance for the first time this year.

*--*

Team (Site) 1991 1998 Chicago Cubs (Mesa) 131,841 134,329 Oakland Athletics (Phoenix) 100,259 74,255 Milwaukee Brewers (Phoenix-1) 88,447 63,625 San Francisco Giants (Scottsdale) 84,035 105,726 Cleveland Indians (Tucson-2) 65,628 San Diego Padres (Peoria-3) 63,298 85,980 Anaheim Angels (Tempe-4) 57,399 68,836 Seattle Mariners (Peoria-5) 46,471 117,411 Arizona Diamondbacks (Tucson-6) 99,879 Colorado Rockies (Tucson-7) 80,749 Chicago White Sox (Tucson-8) 73,434 Total 637,648 904,224

*--*

1-Moved from Chandler, Ariz. in 1998; 2-Moved to Florida in 1993; 3-Moved from Yuma, Ariz. in 1994; 4-Moved from Mesa, Ariz., and Palm Springs in 1993; 5-Moved from Tempe, Ariz. in 1993; 6-Began play in 1998; 7-Began play in 1993; 8-Moved from Florida in 1998

Source: Cactus League