Professional baseball has had a presence in Arizona since the early 1900's when minor league teams frequently stopped in Arizona to play exhibition games before their regular season. It wasn't until 1946, however, that the Cactus League first began to take shape. Cleveland Indians maverick owner and baseball pioneer Bill Veeck brought his team to Arizona but not before he convinced New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham to do the same. Bill Veeck said, "IF Horace Stoneham will bring the New York Giants to Phoenix to train, I will bring the Cleveland Indians to Tucson." Among Veeck's reasons for relocating his ball club from its previous spring training site in Florida was the fact that he had recently signed Larry Doby who would be the American League's first black player, and Veeck believed Arizona's racial climate to be more hospitable.

"It all started one night when Larry had to stay in a different hotel than the rest of the team in Florida," recalls Veeck's son Mike. "Dad didn't think it was fair that Larry had to stay in a different hotel."

The Indians set up their spring camp at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson while the Giants opened their operation at the "old" Municipal Stadium in Phoenix. In the Cactus League's inaugural opener on March 8, 1946, Bob Lemon got the win as the Indians defeated the Giants 3-1 at Hi Corbett Field. The pair remained the only Major League clubs to hold spring training in Arizona until 1951 when another New York team arrived on the scene.

In the spring of 1951, the New York Yankees swapped spring training sites with their cross-town rivals, the New York Giants, for one season. This gave Yankees co-owner, Del Webb a chance to see his ballclub play on a day-to-day basis while he also supervised his rapidly growing real estate empire. In the Yankees' single Arizona-based spring, Cactus League fans were treated to the historic pairing of the baseball legends training together for the first and last time. Joe DiMaggio spent his final training season with the club while Mickey Mantle arrived for his first. It was during this year that the beloved "Yankee Clipper" would symbolically pass the torch as Gotham's favorite son to the rookie country boy from Oklahoma. "The Mick" went on to hit the first of his many round trippers in a Yankee uniform that spring in a ballpark that was located only a few miles away from where Bank One Ballpark sits today. Ironically, the Yankees and Giants would meet for a "subway series" that fall.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs had been training on California's Catalina Island, but found it difficult to get opponents to play against every spring. In 1951 they came to Phoenix to play two spring training games against the New York Yankees. With the help of Del Webb, Dwight Patterson, an ambitious Mesa rancher and businessman, was able to set up a meeting with Cubs management at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Patterson wanted a team in his hometown to promote the city and to raise funds to buy equipment for local little league baseball teams. The meeting resulted in an agreement for the Cubs to train in Mesa the next spring and play at Rendezvous Park Stadium. Rendezvous had a capacity of 3,000 and was located near the intersection of Center and University, about one mile south of the current ballpark.

The arrival of the Chicago Cubs brought the number of teams training in Arizona to three. With the addition of the Baltimore Orioles in Yuma in 1954, Arizona's spring circuit was officially dubbed "The Cactus League." That same year, the Indians and Giants would meet in the first ever "Cactus League World Series," a memorable fall classic that would showcase Willie Mays' famous catch, Dusty Rhodes' pinch hit home runs and a surprising four-game sweep by the Giants over the heavily favored Indians.

In 1956, the Orioles, with their rookie third baseman Brooks Robinson, moved into the original Scottsdale Stadium. Robinson would earn a starting spot with the team two years later and anchor the third base position for the next 20 years.

The Boston Red Sox replaced the Orioles in Scottsdale in 1959. Ted Williams, "the splendid splinter", would play two more seasons for the Sox before being replaced in left field by another future Hall of Famer, Carl Yastrzemski, in 1961. A Cactus League mainstay, Scottsdale Stadium would become the most utilized of all the Cactus League ballparks, hosting the Orioles, Red Sox, Cubs, A's and Giants during its 43-year history.

Major League expansion brought the Houston Colt .45s to Geronimo Park in Apache Junction in 1962, with rookies Jimmy Wynn and Rusty Staub. After the 1965 spring season the Cubs abruptly left Mesa for supposed greener pastures in California. Little did they know, but their proposed new training facility was no more than a dirt little league field. They stayed in California for only one year, then returned to Arizona and played in Scottsdale from 1967-78. Rendezvous Park sat empty with no team to host until Dwight Patterson lured Charlie O. Finley and the Oakland A's to Mesa in 1969. That was also the year that the San Diego Padres came to 'Yuma while the Seattle Pilots landed in Tempe for their one and only year as a franchise. In 1970 the Pilots moved to Milwaukee, became the Brewers, and continued to train in Arizona.

From 1972-1974, the mustachioed Swingin' A's with Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter and company won three straight World Series, becoming the first Cactus League team to win the championship since the 1954 Giants. No team has won three Series in a row since.

By the mid-70s, the facilities at Rendezvous Park were outdated. In order to keep spring training in Mesa, the city razed the old stadium in 1976 and built a new ballpark. HoHoKam Park was opened in 1977, but the A's stayed only one more season before being replaced by the Cubs.

For nearly a decade the Cactus League was stable with eight teams: The Angels trained in Mesa, playing home games the last two weeks of Spring Training in Palm Springs; the Cubs reunited in Mesa; the Indians trained in Tucson; the Brewers were in Chandler; the A's in Phoenix; the Padres in Yuma; the Giants in Scottsdale; and the Mariners in Tempe.

The late 1980s forced a turning point in Cactus League development. The Grapefruit League discovered the economic importance of baseball and, as a result, Florida introduced various mechanisms to raise revenues to assist communities in building new facilities to attract Major League clubs. The Cleveland Indians, one of the pioneering teams of the Cactus League, left for Florida in 1993. Besides competing with other Florida host communities, Florida cities turned their attention to teams engaged in spring training in Arizona. Fortunately, Arizona's Governor Rose Mofford was ready to withstand the challenge. A former standout ball player herself, Arizona's first lady created the Arizona Baseball Commission to determine how to keep baseball in Arizona. She was also instrumental in passing legislation that would provide the impetus for the Cactus League's growth. New ballparks have been erected in Peoria, where the Mariners and Padres entered a cooperative effort, and in Mesa, where the Cubs are guaranteed to remain for another generation. Hi Corbett Field was refurbished for the Colorado Rockies. And, in the spring of 1998, brand new Maryvale Baseball Park became the home of the Brewers while brand new Tucson Electric Park became the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox.

In 2003, the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers entered a cooperative effort to share a facility in the city of Surprise. With these additions, Arizona's spring training circuit reached a new high water mark with twelve teams playing in nine ballparks across the state. But the state is not satisfied to rest on its laurels.  State government and local communities are committed to securing Cactus League baseball as one of Arizona's major attractions for decades to come.

- Charlie Vascellaro