Consigliere

[Dozen]

T, THis may sound like a stoooopid question but here it is. What benifit does the tribe get for moving to Arizona for spring training? Is this gonna be a revenue source? I know it's been rumored for the last 4-5 yrs in Florida. And if it is a revenue deal, was this a card the had to pull in order to try and keep Haffner/CC/Westbrook?

[swerb]

I can't wait. My wife's got a bunch of family out there, not far at all from where it's gonna be.

First year there in 2009 also coincides with my son being about 4 years old, which is right about the time he'll really start to dog that.

Annual sabbatical it's gonna become for me.

7-8 days of golf, baseball, and good food and alcohol.

Don't get any better than that outside of my wife turning into Scarlett Johannson like a pumpkin at midnight.

[pup]

This will sound like a silly answer, but one advantage could be weather. There are a lot of rain days in FL. Maybe the whole day doesn't get washed out, but you get oushed back or inside. In Zona, it doesn't rain and if it does it only makes for a nicer day. I played out there for a couple of years and when it rained, we ran our asses off, because you could get the most "mileage" in on those days. The Indians were always an Arizona ST team until the early 90's when they moved to Winter Haven.

They also had trouble with their least in Winter Haven.

[Dozen]

Im sure Dolan only see's $$$$$$$$$$$$

[consigliere]

I wrote this a few weeks back....this is straight from Dolan's mouth:

On the move to Arizona: The only factor that worked against a move to Arizona was the logistics of such a move. This factor was certainly the biggest one considered, as the Indians realize that it is much easier for the fans to get to Spring Training in Florida than Arizona. That said, when logistics were taken out of the equation, the move to Arizona is right in every way for this organization. The opportunity to train and setup operations in Arizona is phenomenal, and the area provides the largest collection of teams training in one area, so travel from site to site is easier. Also, Arizona has become a favorite area to live and train for MLB players, so this will help the Indians in future years when trying to sign free agents or even retain their own players. Dolan feels that the biggest reason why we lost out on our pursuit of Eric Gagne was because Texas trains in Arizona and we currently do not.

The Indians have been trying to get out of Winter Haven for years. The only reason they were in Winter Haven to begin with is because the Homestead site was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo back when we moved in 1993. They have been searching for years in FLorida to move to another location. They had a deal with Disney about done last year if I recall, but that fell through. Bottom line, the fashionable thing right now is moving to Arizona. There is a good article here on it:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/b ... index.html

[Dozen]

thanks