CORKY: Not sad to see Spring Training go

The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks plan to leave Tucson and join the parade of major league baseball teams moving to the commuter-belt sprawl of Phoenix for Spring Training.

Someone needs to tell these ball clubs what they need to hear.

OK, here goes. Good luck, guys, and don’t let the gate hit you in the butt on your way out of Hi Corbett Field and Tucson Electric Park.

The Rockies have been friends since the franchise began and played at Hi Corbett before they played in Denver in their inaugural season of 1993.

The Diamondbacks are like family. Cousins, maybe.

But their whining and arm twisting and intimidation wore thin a long time ago. To lose major league baseball entirely would be another blow to Tucson’s slumping economy.

Not to mention the loss of a cherished tradition that goes back more than 60 years.

But Southern Arizona has supported these teams in good times and bad, and we’ve given them everything we could. Remodeling Hi Corbett more than once for the Rockies, adding seats and sprucing the place up. And coming up with the money to build Tucson Electric Park in the first place for the Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox, providing them with separate annex training facilities and keeping all of it in tip-top shape.

The White Sox split first. They trained this spring in Maricopa County, the 12th team in the Phoenix area. The Cincinnati Reds will move there next spring and the Rockies and Diamondbacks will join the innumerable caravan in 2011.

Who knows? The tax situation in Florida and the overall expense of training there may send all 30 major league teams to Phoenix eventually.

Maybe a few clubs fleeing Florida will relocate in Tucson and Pima County. There’s even been talk of inviting a professional team from Japan to train in our area, an appealing possibility for sure.

But we’re tired of the bellyaching from ball clubs named White Sox and Rockies and Diamondbacks. These are hard times everywhere. Well, everywhere but Phoenix.

Or so it seems.

The bedroom communities up there have stolen teams with all sorts of promises — brand new ball parks, concession and parking money. You name it.

But what happens when the new wears off, the ball teams want more and they don’t get the proper response to their blackmail?

One of the selling points of moving to the former cotton fields and junkyards of Phoenix is less travel. No more two-hour bus rides from Tucson.

Right. And how are they going to like the three- and four-hour bus rides from Surprise to Mesa when the traffic reaches gridlock up there?

How much better will their physical conditioning be when they spend a month inhaling some of the most polluted air in the country?

Are they going to enjoy sightseeing in their free time in what has become the “Kidnap Capital of North America?”

Phoenix lost its charm long ago. Now it only offers bigness.

I heard a television reporter reading a story the other day that mentioned Southern Arizona “losing baseball.” That’s not true.

If the big league teams abandon us completely, we’ll still have baseball. Good baseball — the best at the collegiate level at the University of Arizona. And top-notch junior college competition at Pima Community College. As well as exciting high school ball.

What we won’t have, if we lose major league Spring Training, is $6 cups of beer and overpriced hot dogs, veteran ballplayers lounging around the outfield and failing to run out ground balls.

And management constantly harping about the need for better carpeting, upholstered recliners in the executive suites and a bigger cut in whatever profits there might be.

Spring Training has become part of life in Southern Arizona, there’s no doubt about it. We love having the big leaguers here. But if they can’t resist the already saturated sprawl of Phoenix, then good luck to them.

We’ll still have baseball games to watch.

Former Tucson Citizen columnist Corky Simpson writes a weekly commentary for the Green Valley News.