SAN DIEGO — The Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks officially announced Thursday they will be sharing a spring training complex near Scottsdale, Ariz., beginning in 2011. The decision had been brewing for months.
The new facility will be built on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on 140 acres adjacent to Scottsdale. Under the agreement, the tribe will build an 11,000-seat ballpark, as well as a complex that includes 12 practice fields, training facilities and team offices. The deal is for 25 years with options to extend the contract.
“We know that this shared home will be one of the finest year-round training facilities in all of Major League Baseball and something that our organizations, fans and the community will be proud of for decades to come,” Rockies president Keli McGregor said in a statement.
The move means that the spring of 2010 will mark the Rockies’ final spring training at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, where they’ve trained since their inception in 1993.
“I’ve been going to Tucson for a long time, so it’s going to be different, that’s for sure,” Rockies veteran first baseman Todd Helton said. “There won’t be as much travel for us, so that’s a good thing. And we’ll have a new facility, so that’s always a cool thing.”
Yo, Adrian.
Padres all-star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez scares opponents, especially after they watched him crank out 11 homers in May. Since then, they’ve pitched the slugger ultra-carefully. Entering Thursday’s game, he’d drawn 41 walks (nine intentional) over his last 42 games. From June 1-9, he walked two or more times in eight straight games, the first player to do that since 1920.
Rockies manager Jim Tracy doesn’t plan to give Gonzalez a free pass to first on every at-bat, but Rockies pitchers will be judicious.
“We will pitch him situation to situation,” Tracy said. “You realize that this is somebody who can hurt you really badly, but you have to look at the scoreboard and what the situation is. His one swing can impact the outcome of the game, so you have to be mindful of that.”
Footnotes.
Catcher Yorvit Torrealba’s hamstring is fine after three days of rest. He tweaked it slightly in Sunday’s game. . . . Because Jason Marquis didn’t pitch in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, Tracy toyed with the idea of starting Marquis on Saturday rather than Sunday. But Marquis has an uncomfortable callus on his index finger, so Tracy decided to stick to the original plan.
