Spring Training

Spring training is almost as old as baseball itself. Some sports historians believe that the first organized pre-season camps were held in 1870 when the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings convened in New Orleans. Others argue that the Washington Capitals of the National League pioneered spring training in 1888, holding a four-day session in Jacksonville, Florida. By 1900, spring training was a firmly established baseball ritual with most American and National League teams heading to more temperate locales so players could prepare for the season and managers could evaluate the players. Although no major league club was based west of St. Louis until 1958, teams had been working out on the left coast as early as 1903, the Chicago Cubs' first year in Los Angeles. Several stops around the country followed until the team settled on Catalina Island, 20 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, as their winter home from 1922-1951. In 1952, at the suggestion of New York Yankees' co-owner Del Webb, the Cubs relocated their pre-season operation to Mesa, Arizona for the next 14 years. After spending the spring of 1966 back in California and the next 12 exhibition seasons in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Cubs returned to Mesa in 1979 and to HoHoKam Park, their present-day spring training headquarters.