Why Is Baseball Spring Training in Both Florida and Arizona?

With Major League Baseball spring training going strong in Florida since the early 1900s, how did Arizona manage to get a swing at the plate for this annual warm-up for players? Well, a maverick owner and the sad state of race relations in the mid-1940s combined to provide the lead-off to the new Cactus League.

In 1946, one of baseball's most unique and creative owners, Bill Veeck, moved his Cleveland Indians from Florida to Tucson, fed up with the racial segregation for both players and fans. According to one account, when Veeck owned the minor league Milwaukee Brewers he attended a game in Ocala and inadvertently sat in the segregated section. When officials told him he could not sit with African American fans, he protested and wouldn't budge.

After selling the Brewers, he purchased the Indians and signed Larry Doby, the first African American to play in the American League. Another racial incident convinced him it was time to go.

"It all started one night when Larry had to stay in a different hotel than the rest of the team in Florida," Veeck's son Mike told Cactus League historian Charlie Vascellaro. "Dad didn't think it was fair that Larry had to stay in a different hotel."

Needing more local teams to play, Veeck convinced the New York Giants owner, Horace Stoneham, to join him in the southwest. On March 8, 1946, the Indians beat the Giants 3-1 in the first Cactus League game. The Chicago Cubs, who had been training on Catalina Island off the coast of California, had a hard time finding other teams to play (duh?!). So they became the third team in Arizona in 1951, followed by the Orioles in 1954 and the Red Sox in 1959.

With the addition of the Cincinnati Reds in 2010, the Cactus League has caught its rival, Florida's Grapefruit League, with 15 MLB teams at each location. New ballparks and friendly financial incentives will keep the two states competing for teams well into the next decade.

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Dan Peterson writes about sports science at Sports Are 80 Percent Mental.