Spring training

Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season.

Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warm climates of Arizona and Florida to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play.

Critics including Cap Anson argued that players would be more prone to sore muscles and colds after returning to their colder home climates.

Ruth responded by hitting two home runs that day in Hot Springs, with the second being a 573-foot (175 m) shot that landed across the street from Whittington Park in a pond of the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo.

[7][8][9] Over 130 Major League Baseball Hall of Famers, including Ruth, Anson, Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Dizzy Dean, Jimmie Foxx, and Stan Musial, trained in Hot Springs.

[14] Early training sites include the St. Louis Cardinals in Hot Springs and Tulsa, Oklahoma; the New York Yankees in New Orleans and later Phoenix, Arizona, when the team was owned by Del Webb; the Chicago Cubs in Los Angeles when owned by William Wrigley Jr.; the St. Louis Browns and later the Kansas City Athletics in San Diego and then in West Palm Beach, Florida; the Pittsburgh Pirates in Dawson Springs, Kentucky around 1915 and Honolulu, while other teams joined in by the early 1940s.

[18] All but six of the major league teams have gone to spring training in Florida at one time or another (Anaheim Angels, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks).

Many of the most famous players in baseball history (Ruth, Gehrig, Musial, Cobb, Mays, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, and many more) have called Florida home for four–six weeks every spring.

[19] According to the autobiography of former Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck, the avoidance of racism was one reason the Cactus League was established.

Intending to introduce African-American players, Veeck decided to buck tradition and train the Indians in Tucson and convinced the New York Giants to give Phoenix a try.

Spring training camps and games were also held in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and various cities of northern Mexico, sometimes by visiting major league teams in the 1950s and 1960s.

For example, early in their history, the then-California Angels held spring training in Palm Springs, California from 1961 to 1993, the San Diego Padres in Yuma, Arizona from 1969 to 1993, the Oakland Athletics in Las Vegas, Nevada in the 1970s, and various major league teams had trained in El Centro, Riverside, and San Bernardino.

The concept of spring training is not limited to North America; the Japanese professional baseball leagues' teams adopted spring training and preseason game sites across East Asia such as South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan; on the Pacific Islands (most notably in Hawaii); and in two cities in the United States: Salinas, California and Yuma, Arizona on the Mexican border.

A year later, the San Diego Padres hosted the Houston Astros at Estadio Fray Nano in Mexico City.

[30] In 2020, MLB hosted a spring training game between the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers at Estadio Quisqueya in Santo Domingo.

[35][36][37][a] Grapefruit League teams primarily play against the others located on the same coast, rarely traveling to the other side of Florida for spring training games.

The Cactus League teams are all within the Phoenix metropolitan area (as of 2014 when the Diamondbacks and Rockies left Tucson for their new shared facility, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick[41]).

According to the Arizona Republic, the Cactus League generates more than $300 million a year in economic impact to the greater Phoenix metropolitan area economy.

[43] Following is the list of spring training locations by team in the Cactus League in Arizona:[40] Statistics are recorded during spring training games, but they are not combined with the listed statistics for regular season games, and unusual performances which would have broken records if accomplished during the regular season are considered to be unofficial.

A perfect game is considered a crowning accomplishment during the regular season or postseason, but in spring training it attracts little notice.

Reliever Rod Beck, who finished the game, did not realize the nature of his accomplishment until informed by catcher Joe Siddall.

These changes to the traditional game of baseball allow for MLB to adapt to the modern day of playing and set up teams throughout the league for success.

Along with the experimentation of the pitch clock, spring training also tested out larger bases to protect player's safety and a shift restriction to promote more exciting plays.

Pawol hopes her efforts throughout spring training will lead to the opportunity for her to become the first female umpire to work a regular season game.

[52] Minor league players participate in spring training following a telescoped schedule that generally lasts from March 1 to 31.

This impacts spring training as many star players opt to represent their country rather than prepare for the upcoming MLB season with their respective teams.

This leaves teams in tough situations as they are forced to build their lineups, sell tickets, and play games without their star players.

Since these games take place so early into the baseball year, this leads to an increased risk of injury among players as well as conflicting development within MLB organizations.

As recent as 2023, Mets pitcher Edwin Diaz suffered a torn patellar tendon after a game, leaving him out for the entire upcoming season.