So I spent the day today in Glendale, taking a tour of Camelback Ranch and meeting with my counterpart at the White Sox, Scott Reifert (of Inside the White Sox fame) and I hardly know where to begin. I had heard from a number of people how amazing the complex would be, but I have an entirely new appreciation for the place we’re all going to call home for Spring Training.

Some of the really cool things I hadn’t even realized were in place despite how closely I’ve worked with the project over the last two years include:

A “replica” Dodger Stadium practice field that has the exact same dimensions of our regular season stadium, which obviously helps tremendously when you’re preparing to play in a given place.

An amazing central meeting place beyond center field where fans are going to just want to hang out and take in all that’s going on around them. This is where the lake is that is between the Dodgers’ side and the White Sox side of the campus.

An enormous minor league clubhouse that has got to be four times the size of their current one in Vero Beach. Talk about an upgrade. Wow. This is something our minor leaguers will really appreciate as they try and prepare to reach the bigs.

And most importantly, tons of places where fans and players will come across one another like they did in Vero Beach. That was one of the coolest things about being there and for any of you that had the chance to visit and appreciate that closeness, I expect that it will be the case again at Camelback Ranch.

Those are just my initial thoughts, but I truly hope that you’re all making your plans to come out and be a part of the inaugural Spring Training there. We should be sending out an official Spring Training schedule very soon (there are a few minor tweaks to the one online now that we know the Sox will be joining us this year) but trust me, I think you’ll all be in awe of how impressive this campus really is.

We just put a news release that announced the name of our Spring Training complex and it’s Camelback Ranch. You can read the whole thing here and check out a recent aerial photo here:
Camelback Ranch aerial.pdf.

And, I’m actually very glad that a few of you asked about ticket pricing at Camelback Ranch, as I think that it has been portrayed extremely inaccurately by the media that has written about it so far. Yes, there are seats there that cost $90 and they are the equivalent of the Dugout Club at Dodger Stadium – all inclusive with your parking, food, a promotional item, etc. But the key thing to remember is – much like the Dugout Club, there are only about 600 of them in the stadium. That’s just over four percent of the ballpark.

The dropoff then goes to $30 per ticket – which means that more than 95 percent of the seats in the park are at that number or less (with some as low as $8). In fact, our head of ticketing told me yesterday that there are seats that are literally in the front row, where you can put your drink on top of the dugout, and they cost just $30. To me, that’s nothing to be ashamed of – I actually think that’s extremely reasonable.

It is very important to us that all fans are able to come to Camelback Ranch and that’s why there are so many options available. For those who want the all-inclusive treatment, there are a limited number of those seats. But for just about everyone else, the cost is very competitive with everything else in the Cactus League and only slightly more expensive than our seats were in Vero Beach – at a complex that is expected to be one of, if not the finest in all of baseball.