In the surest sign that spring training is coming to Arizona and Florida, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies announced Wednesday they are selling a limited number of tickets for all Cactus League games at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick complex in Scottdale.
The D-backs open against the Rockies on Feb. 27, but pitchers and catchers are set to report in two weeks, with position players shortly to follow.
The two clubs each have 15 games at the spring facility they share, including three against each other. A club spokesman said the D-backs are still working out logistics for the regular-season home schedule, which opens at Chase Field against the Cincinnati Reds on April 9.
The regular season begins for all 30 teams on April 1.
Plans in the Arizona valley, where 15 Major League teams train at 10 facilities, began to move into full swing Tuesday, a day after Major League Baseball and the players’ union agreed to open on time despite cases and deaths from the coronavirus surging in Arizona and Florida.
The Chicago Cubs had previously told fans internally through an email they would sell limited seats for spring games at Sloan Park in Mesa. But unlike the D-backs and Rockies, tickets for those games are not yet available on the Cubs’ website.
The D-backs said both teams will sell 2,200 tickets for each game, about 20% of the normal capacity of the 11,000-seat ballpark, which opened in 2011.
The tickets will be sold in socially distanced pods of two, four or six seats together.
All purchases of parking, concessions, merchandise and tickets will be cashless, much like the Arizona Coyotes regular-season National Hockey League games at Gila River Arena. In Glendale, the Coyotes have been selling about 2,600 seats per game in an arena that seats 17,125. But the club intends to work with local health officials to adjust that capacity on a month-by-month basis. The Coyotes are currently on a six-game road trip and have not played a home game yet in February.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, who train about a mile away from Gila River in Glendale, have yet to put tickets on sale for spring games at Camelback Ranch.
