2012 Spring Training
Reporting Dates
Before the games begin, players have to report to camp. To see when pitchers and catchers report and first practices are held for your team, visit the 2012 Spring Training Reporting Dates page.

Guide to New Red Sox Spring Training Ballpark in Fort Myers Now Available
The Red Sox will debut their brand new spring training site in 2012, when JetBlue Park at Fenway South replaces their previous home in Fort Myers, City of Palms Park, which the team used from 1993 through 2011. While the ballparks are only about a dozen miles apart, they'll be worlds apart in amenities for both players and fans. Fan-friendly ballpark guides are the focus of this website, and the pre-opening guide of JetBlue Park is ready to go for those who want to know what to expect at the newest state-of-the-art spring training stadium.

Full Grapefruit League Schedule Posted
The 15 teams holding spring training in the Sunshine State will play a total of 243 games in preparation for the 2012 season. Seven of those games are exhibitions against collegiate squads (and a minor league team), including the opening game on the schedule (Florida State-Phillies on February 29). In all, 86.8% of the games (211) on the Grapefruit League schedule will be played in the afternoon and 15 venues will be used, as Miami's New Marlins Ballpark will host a pair of games in addition to the league's regular 14 ballparks.

All 30 Team Schedules Now Available
The Houston Astros, on October 12, became the first team to release their 2012 spring training schedule, and nine weeks later the Washington Nationals, on December 14, became the 30th and final team to officially announce their schedule. Links to every team's Cactus or Grapefruit League schedule are now posted on the Spring Training Schedules page, so let the planning for 2012 begin!

Let's Watch Two
Ernie Banks famously said "Let's play two!" and while there are no doubleheaders during spring training there are plenty of opportunities for fans to watch two games in one day. With 58 games scheduled to be played at night in 2012 fans can enjoy a day/night DH at different ballparks. Check out the list of 2012 Spring Training Night Games to plan your creative double dip.

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Spring Training News
Major League Teams Return to Historic Al Lang Field in 2012
For the first 11 seasons of their big league existence, the Tampa Bay Rays trained for the regular season just down the street from their regular season home. When the Rays left Progress Energy Park (better known as Al Lang Field) following their final exhibition game there on March 28, 2008, it appeared that spring training in St. Petersburg would be gone for good, the bayfront grounds where baseball players had trained since 1922 no longer needed. But after mostly languishing for the three years after the Rays moved to Port Charlotte, old Al Lang Field was given new life in 2011 thanks to foreign teams choosing to train for America's national pastime on American soil, and the revived St. Pete ballpark hosted a handful of exhibition games. The event was dubbed the St. Petersburg International Spring Baseball Series and it will return in 2012, when the national teams from Canada and the Netherlands get some big league competition from the Blue Jays, Braves, Phillies, Pirates, Rays and Tigers. Locally-based St. Petersburg College is also a part of the mix, which will see 10 games played from March 6-18 on Al Lang Field at Progress Energy Park. The major league spring training competition that the foreign squads will face will probably be comprised of an organization's minor leaguers, so the likes of Ryan Howard aren't likely to be homering into the bay that begins just beyond left field. Still, the six MLB split-squads that will take the field in St. Petersburg this March is a big improvement over 2011, when the Rays were the only team to participate in a "friendly," which they won over the Dutch by a 4-3 score. For the full 2012 schedule of games and other pertinent information, visit the St. Petersburg International Baseball website.

Pros Go Against College Foes 6 Times in 2012
Once upon a time, professionals clashed with amateurs in exhibitions to kick off spring training. That explains why it wasn't uncommon for an inaugural game at a ballpark to pit a local nine against a Major League squad. Such was the case in 1991 when Edison Community College and the Minnesota Twins christened Hammond Stadium. Ditto for the stadium six miles from it, City of Palms Park, which made its debut two years later with the Boston Red Sox hosting Boston College. Nineteen years later, BC still makes their annual pilgrimage to Fort Myers to play the BoSox. In fact, they will be a part of the inaugural opening day doubleheader, along with Northeastern University, at the brand new JetBlue Park in Fort Myers on March 3. But otherwise spring training games involving college teams are becoming increasingly rare. In 2011, there were seven such match-ups, all played in Florida, where an eighth non-traditional exhibition was hosted by the Rays at their old spring training park in St. Petersburg against the national team from the Netherlands. The amateur teams went 1-7 in their eight games against MLB teams, with the lone victory coming by the University of Miami against the Marlins. In 2012, just five collegiate teams will have an opportunity to obtain glory in their big league exhibitions but Miami is not one of them. Instead, Florida Southern will got a shot twice while Boston College, Florida State, Northeastern and South Florida each get a single chance to shine on a Grapefruit League diamond.

Spring Training Features
A Guide to Attending Spring Training Practice...and Getting Autographs at Them
Proximity to the pros at a price that can't be beat. That sums up the free to attend practice only portion of spring training, during which time autographs are easy to come by and barriers between players and fans are often remarkably minimal. Spring training in February has an ambiance of fan-friendliness that's unmatched in professional sports. To help you bask in it, Graham Knight has compiled a guide with team-by-team listings of where practices are actually held, when you should be there, and the guidelines for getting autographs at them.

Tips For Getting Autographs
How do you get autographs in Spring Training? Joe Connor answers that question. Read his article, How to Get Autographs During Spring Training, to learn about the three important factors autograph seekers must be aware of in their quest.

The Best Ballpark Atmospheres During Spring Training
Joe Connor ranks, from worst to first, the general game day atmosphere found at each Grapefruit and Cactus League ballpark. Not surprisingly, the rabid Red Sox and Cubs fan bases ensure their teams top the respective lists.

Things To Do In Arizona and Florida During Spring Training
Fans of all ages have plenty to experience and see in the Grand Canyon and Sunshine States besides watching their favorite team train in their winter home. Joe Connor details a “starting nine” of sports and recreation things to do when you're not at your favorite team’s ballpark.

Planning For Spring Training
What do you need to know before you go? Joe Connor helps you answer that question in his article, 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Planning Your 2010 Spring Training Trip. Joe follows that piece up with a little recent history about each team training in Arizona and Florida to explain why the sport's playoff parity has been good for Spring Training ticket sales.

To Dine For: Ranking the Ballparks Based on the Food They Offer
Peoria and Lakeland top our list by having the best ballpark concessions fare in their respective leagues. Which other ballparks also do a good job at satisfying appetites? See the rankings and explanations for all 26.

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2011 Spring Training Recap

A new ballpark was the big story of spring training in 2011, as the Diamondbacks' and Rockies' joint facility on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community's reservation drew large crowds all spring long, enabling the two teams to draw more fans than any other in either Arizona or Florida. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, which was fully funded by the two tribes on whose land it stands, collectively attracted 359,308 fans to the 33 games that were played in the 11,000-seat stadium.

Overall, 474 sanctioned spring training games were played in Arizona and Florida in 26 ballparks and a total of 3,185,569 fans paid to see them.

In the Cactus League, 235 games were played by 15 teams in 11 ballparks. Total attendance was 1,613,853, an average of 6,867 per game. Six games were rained out, all on March 21. Two of the league's games were played in Tucson, and they drew 18,239 fans for games that benefited the families who were directly affected by the Tucson area shooting on January 8 that most notably critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Both games were played at Kino Stadium, which was known as Tucson Electric Park during its 13 seasons of Cactus League use. The 2011 season was the first one since 1946 in which spring training was not permanently held in Tucson. The opening of Salt River Fields just east of Scottsdale lured Tucson's two remaining teams, the Diamondbacks and Rockies, into the metropolitan Phoenix area, where all 15 of the Cactus League's teams now train within 50 miles of each other.

In the Grapefruit League, 239 games were played by 15 teams in 15 ballparks. Total attendance was 1,571,716, an average of 6,576 per game. Just three games were rained out, all of them on March 28. Additionally, another 28,504 paid to watch eight games that were played by Major League clubs against collegiate or non-MLB teams.

The average attendance for a spring training game in 2011 was 6,721, which was up 68 fans per game from 2010, when 432 games drew a total of 2,873,880 fans to Cactus and Grapefruit League ballparks.

Salt River Fields was the only new ballpark to open in 2011, but Sarasota's Ed Smith Stadium reopened following an extensive offseason renovation that transformed the aging stadium, which had opened in 1989, into a modern ballpark. Elsewhere in Florida, Fort Myers' City of Palms Park, home to the Red Sox since 1993, hosted its final Grapefruit League game on March 29. The Red Sox will be the sole team moving into a new facility in 2012, which is when JetBlue Park will open less than 10 miles from the now tenantless City of Palms Park.

2011 Attendance Rankings

(home games only, ranked by per game average)

Grapefruit League City Average Total 1.  Yankees 2.  Phillies 3.  Twins 4.  Braves 5.  Red Sox 6.  Orioles 7.  Tigers 8.  Cardinals 9.  Rays 10. Mets 11. Pirates 12. Blue Jays 13. Nationals 14. Marlins 15. Astros Tampa Clearwater Fort Myers Orlando Fort Myers Sarasota Lakeland Jupiter Port Charlotte Port St. Lucie Bradenton Dunedin Viera Jupiter Kissimmee 10,872 9,252 8,091 8,021 7,281 7,214 6,824 6,177 5,819 5,297 5,286 4,546 4,397 4,340 3,845 163,085 157,292 129,453 136,360 131,053 115,417 122,827 92,652 87,291 90,057 89,861 68,195 65,958 73,782 65,367

Cactus League City Average Total 1.  Diamondbacks 2.  Rockies 3.  Giants 4.  Cubs 5.  Dodgers 6.  Mariners 7.  Rangers 8.  White Sox 9.  Angels 10. Padres 11. A's 12. Royals 13. Brewers 14. Reds 15. Indians Scottsdale Scottsdale Scottsdale Mesa Glendale Peoria Surprise Glendale Tempe Peoria Phoenix Surprise Phoenix Goodyear Goodyear 11,161 10,598 10,036 9,443 7,365 7,021 6,900 6,117 5,894 5,060 5,009 4,860 4,646 3,789 3,734 189,737 169,571 160,574 160,536 103,114 112,338 103,507 91,749 88,413 75,906 80,145 72,900 74,330 53,050 59,744

* Attendance figures include all games in which paid admission was collected

2011 Grapefruit League Standings   W L  T GB Twins 19 11    - Phillies 20 13    ½ Tigers 20 14    1 Braves 16 12  4  2 Blue Jays 16 14  1  3 Mets 17 15  2  3 Nationals 15 14    3½ Rays 15 14  2  3½ Marlins 15 15  1  4 Orioles 15 15  2  4 Cardinals 14 16  1  5 Yankees 13 15  3  5 Red Sox 13 19  2  7 Pirates 11 20    8½ Astros 11 23    10

2011 Cactus League Standings   W L  T GB Royals 20 10  1  - Rockies 20 11  1  ½ Brewers 19 11  1  1 Giants 20 12    1 Mariners 16 12  2  3 Angels 15 13  1  4 Reds 16 14  1  4 Indians 15 14  2  4½ Padres 13 16  1  6½ Rangers 13 16  1  6½ Cubs 13 18    7½ Dodgers 13 18  1  7½ A's 12 18  1  8 White Sox 11 20  1  9½ D-backs 12 25    11½

* Standings only include games played in Arizona and Florida between MLB teams

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"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
- Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby

"It's the fans that need spring training. You gotta get 'em interested. Wake 'em up and let 'em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.”
- Harry Caray

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