Spring Training Update: A’s Looking To Move To Mesa

The negotiations which started on Monday and last till next Spring may not go through, at least that is what the city of Phoenix is hoping.  Deputy park director Rob Harmon told azcentral.com,””We’re still hopeful that Oakland will be at Municipal Stadium,” Harmon said. “But we understand, that’s the ways of the Cactus League.”

The A’s are also watching the negotiations closely because they want to be able to take the Hohokam field in Mesa and make it smaller by removing most of the 12,500 seats so fans can have that old school triple league kind of atmosphere.

A’s management feels that Phoenix Municipal Stadium, one of the oldest stadiums in the Cactus League, needs renovations.  However, unlike the dreary prison looking stadium in Oakland, the city of Phoenix did do some upkeep.  Harmon said,”Phoenix has tried to keep it fresh, the most recent major effort being a $6.4million face-lift, but unfortunately the infrastructure of that facility is still 1964.”

Before you start to ask if the city of Mesa had planned to take the A’s out of Phoenix, think again.  It was the A’s who approached Mesa about relocation of their team.  Although, it seems like A’s owner Lew Wolff would entertain this deal happily.  Apparently, he has a number of business interests in Mesa one of those interests is in the Hyatt Place hotel in the Riverview shopping complex.If this sounds familiar to you, a similar situation is playing out between Oakland and San Jose, where Wolff has business interests in San Jose.  A city that Wolff has been wanting to move his major league players to.

Whatever happens with in Arizona, rest assured, the A’s will always have a strong following of fans during their spring training sessions.  Until then, both Phoenix and Mesa will have to just wait it out.