Gonzales: Hope springs eternal for baseball season to get started
Mike Kiley had to be talked into keeping his Cubs regular season tickets for the 31st consecutive year by a team executive, but the thought of missing spring training games due to the lockout threatens the joy of his March visits to Arizona.
"You got me sour right now," Kiley said in a telephone interview. "I feel for the spring training people."
Specifically, Kiley was identifying the restaurant, hotel and apartment owners and workers and gameday employees who could be impacted negatively by a curtailed spring training.
What should be a rebound season for everyone currently remains a state of thick uncertainty because there's no definition as to when the start of spring training might start, even after Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week there is "no change right now" regarding spring training, which is scheduled to start Wednesday.
"In a normal year, it's a lot easier," said Steve Eberhart, general manager of the Glendale Renaissance, located 2½ miles from Camelback Ranch, spring training home of the White Sox and Dodgers.
"It's hard to compare from the previous year and the year before (because of COVID-19)."
From Harry Caray to Kiley to yours truly, spring training represents the best time of the year. The warmth of the Arizona sun and the opportunity to stay outside for hours to watch a sport without fear of frostbite is virtually utopian.
Not everyone can financially afford or take time off to attend spring training, so that privilege was never lost - even when it once required one hour, 45 minutes to drive through commuter traffic from Mesa to Goodyear for a Cubs-Reds night game.
The distances are longer and the time more precious in Florida, so attending spring training in Arizona - especially with teams no longer training in Tucson - is more optimal.
Cactus League games are scheduled to start in two weekends, but hotel and restaurant executives could begin to see a steady flow of cancellations if the lockout progresses.
It's too early to tell whether the lockout will carry into March, but the emergence of COVID in 2020 shut down the exhibition season prior to the busiest two weekends.
Last spring, COVID-induced laws limited crowds to about 23 percent of 15,000 capacity at Sloan Park - spring home of the Cubs.
Eberhart emphasized his guests travel to spring trainings for hobbies other than baseball, such as golfing and hiking.
But he did acknowledge a delay in the start of spring training that carries into the start of the Cactus League season could impact reservations.
During a normal spring training - a six-week span ending in late March - for some Scottsdale restaurants and bars to draw enough business to pay for most of their annual bills. The spring months are precious to those businesses, especially when the volume of customers drops significantly during the hot and muggy summer months when fans and tourists retreat to their permanent residents and locals often vacation at more moderate climates, such as San Diego.
Kiley, unlike several of his friends and acquaintances who share his eight tickets, has elected to travel to Arizona for spring training next month despite the uncertainty. Kiley elected to rent a smaller unit in Chandler because of a smaller traveling party.
If there are no major league exhibition games, the chance to watch the Cubs' highly touted minor leaguers would pacify Kiley in a "lukewarm" manner.
However, "there definitely would be a letdown in not being able to see a Marcus Stroman," Kiley said.
The letdown would spread all over the Valley, where fans travel from as far as Canada to see the Mariners.
The Sox usually draw their biggest crowds on the second or third weekend of March, highlighted by a Friday home game against the Cubs. Their 2020 matchup at Camelback Ranch was scheduled on a Friday the 13th but was canceled because of COVID.
Until there is a firm decision, Kiley is relegated to looking at a foot of snow outside his home.
"I'd rather be sitting next to a saguaro cactus," Kiley said.
@MDGonzales