Play Ball

Developer Del Webb brought signature building projects and new home developments to Arizona in the boom years following World War II, but he also brought the New York Yankees to train in Phoenix in 1951. For the past three years, the Play Ball team has been working to contact anyone with a connection to his Arizona baseball story. Webb had no children so finding a living relative able to share the history has been impossible. But recently, thanks to a lead provided by new volunteer Jon Rosenthal, contact has been made to people in Sun City with information about Webb’s Yankees and a season when Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio warmed up in the Arizona sun before winning another World Series for the storied franchise later that year.

Visitors to the new, upscale retail and dining experience known as CityCenter of CityNorth in northeast Phoenix can get their spring training baseball fix from a series of banners that are now up along High Street. (more…)

A team of baseball fans at the Tempe-based firm Off Madison Avenue gets credit for developing what will certainly be an award-winning collection of advertising messages scheduled to make their debut in spring training ballparks around the Cactus League this March.
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When Rose Mofford played softball for the Glendale Cantaloupe Queens as a young woman, she likely had no idea that her love of baseball, nurtured by her father while growing up in Globe, AZ, would someday lead her as Governor of Arizona to save the Cactus League from poaching by rival spring training boosters in Florida.  But that is exactly what happened in 1988, as teams began to look east for places to conduct spring training.
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The return of Play Ball – The Cactus League Experience not only marks the start of a new spring training season for fans across Arizona, but also the debut of a new web site rich in history, information and news about everything that is “Cactus League.”
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The second season of Play Ball – The Cactus League Experience opens in a new and more convenient location this week with new stories and more history on display for the enjoyment of visitors young and old.  On Friday, visitors to the Arizona Museum for Youth in downtown Mesa, AZ will be able to walk through the story of Major League baseball in Arizona, from the barnstorming days of teams that traveled by train to their games in the early 1900’s to the establishment of the Cactus League in the 1950’s to the issues facing the teams and host cities today.
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