In one of the surest signs that winter is about to break like a Soviet-era watch, the Milwaukee Brewers' equipment truck is on its way to Arizona for another spring training.
Question is, will that truck change direction toward Florida in a couple of years?
The Brewers, who have never trained outside of Arizona during their 41-year history, are committed through 2012 to Maryvale Baseball Park, their spring home since 1998.
But for every good thing about the facility, there are problems, including renovation needs and the struggling west Phoenix neighborhood of Maryvale that never bounced back like developers hoped it might with a ballpark as a catalyst.
Rick Schlesinger, the Brewers' vice president for business operations, said the team is in discussion with the City of Phoenix to stay at Maryvale.
"The Brewers are willing to sign a long-term lease as part of a renovation of Maryvale Baseball Park and an understanding of the city's development plans for the Maryvale neighborhood," Schlesinger said.
Phoenix is motivated to keep Milwaukee, and the Brewers' priority is to stay in the Cactus League, where weather, proximity to other teams, closeness to principal owner Mark Attanasio's Los Angeles home and players' off-season digs in Phoenix, and a concentration of Brewers fans in the Valley make it a better option than Florida's Grapefruit League.
But Phoenix, Maricopa County and the state of Arizona are as economically distressed as any governments in the country. Who pays for a new scoreboard, expanded office space, larger concession and retail areas at the ballpark, not to mention the challenging economic development of a neighborhood that would discourage the Brewers to stay if improvement was not foreseen?
In a perfect world, the Brewers should pay for ballpark improvements, and they have fixed things on their own dime. But because of ongoing poaching between Arizona and Florida, which lost the Los Angeles Dodgers to Arizona after 50 years in the Grapefruit League, teams with expiring contracts like the Brewers have leverage.
In an insidious example, Mesa, Ariz., was so intent on keeping the Chicago Cubs from moving to Naples, Fla., that it is proposing a ticket surcharge on all 15 Cactus League teams to help pay for the Cubs' $84 million renovation.
Think about that. If it passes and you're a Brewers fan who buys a Maryvale ticket, you're subsidizing the loathsome and moneyed rival because the Cubs are the Valley's spring cash cow.
Naturally, the Brewers have joined the other Arizona teams in lobbying against the proposal. "The Brewers would be very concerned about any ticket tax to fund another team's facility," Schlesinger said.
But if an aggressive market like Naples remains open, such leverage can only help the Brewers, one of the few teams with a contract coming up for renewal anytime soon. Meanwhile, Phoenix doesn't need an empty ballpark in a stagnant-to-deteriorating neighborhood.
The Brewers have received informal feelers from Florida, but they've yet to reach the point where playing the Florida card would be to their advantage. They've been upfront with Phoenix about their desire to stay, and Phoenix has yet to tell them it cannot afford the ballpark upgrades.
Another option for the Brewers to stay in Arizona would be to share a training site with another team, such as the Oakland A's. Schlesinger said the Brewers are open to a joint facility, but one would likely have to be built from scratch.
Again, who pays?
Bottom line, the Brewers belong somewhere in Arizona. But what's worse than a Florida move would be a couple of cash-strapped cities fighting over a team on the backs of taxpayers. No one needs that, especially when the Maryvale ballpark redos could be satisfied with a minimum of fuss. But since the surrounding area is also an issue and business is business, anything after 2012 is possible.
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