• The city of Goodyear, Ariz., has until Thursday to publicly identify where it’s gonna get the $32 million it will cost to bring the Reds to the Cactus League.
• If the Reds don’t go to Goodyear, they could replace the White Sox in Tucson (I’d like to link to this story, but the Arizona Daily star makes you pay for any story that’s more than a week old).
• One season soon, the Cubs could play some home games at U.S. Cellular Field while Wrigley gets a face lift.
• The former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles thinks the Marlins new stadium should be privately financed.

Yesterday afternoon my girlfriend Suz and I went to watch the Mexican National Team play the Colorado Rockies at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson.

Mexico won 2-1. It was the second time in three days that the Rockies squared off against Mexico. Two days earlier the Rockies won 15-2. Fortunately for Mexico, today’s game was a split squad game for Colorado, so the Rox were without loyal Umpbump reader Troy Tulowitzki and a few other key regulars.

Rockies players who did play today included Matt Holliday, Willy Taveras, Brad Hawpe and Todd Helton. Jeff Francis started the game for the Rox. I didn’t recognize any of the Mexican players.

We sat right in the middle of the Mexican fans, behind Mexico’s dugout. I don’t speak Spanish so I missed the meaning behind a ton of heckling. The guys sitting right behind us were drinking Coors Lights and having a blast. Every minute or so a guy in sunglasses and a camouflage hat would shout something and the fans on our side of the stadium would snicker.

At one point, Suz turned to me and said:

“I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear.”

“What?” I asked.”

“I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear,” she repeated.

“I can’t hear you,” I said. “The fans behind you are too loud. What did you say?”

“I said I think I’m losing the hearing in my right ear,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

As I was leaving the game, the guy in the camouflage hat excitedly high-fived me. I asked him what he had been shouting and he explained to me that he was taunting Mexico’s third base coach, who stands about ten feet to the right of the batters circle, rather than stand in the coach’s box.

“We don’t like him,” he said. “He never stands where he’s supposed to stand. And he blocks our view.”

Other highlights from the game:

• In the fourth inning, the game stopped for a few minutes when strong winds blew dirt from the field into the stands. After the wind died down, everybody in the first ten rows behind home plate stood up and dusted themselves off. Then the game resumed.
• Former Rockies 3B and former Mexican National Team manager Vinny Castilla came out to coach third in the bottom of the ninth inning and got a big standing ovation. I’m pretty sure Vinny could get elected president in Mexico if he were to run.
• A ball hit by one of the Mexico players appeared to clear the left field fence, but was later ruled a ground rule double, much to the dismay of the fans (Note: when Mexico fans disagree with an ump’s call, they whistle. I’d like to see Philly fans give that a try.)
• Throughout the game, kids and adults tossed hats, shirts and balls over the fence to the players in the Mexico dugout. Without fail, the Mexican players signed the items and tossed them back. Very cool.

All in all, it was a great afternoon. And the lesson, as always, is that Mexican fans are the best. Well, except for maybe Japanese fans.

Oh, one last thing…

This season, MLB has decided that first and third base coaches need to wear helmets (much to Larry Bowa’s dismay). But during spring training games, coaches continue to sit in folding chairs set up adjacent to the dugout, with nothing in between them and the hitters. Is it me, or is that a little inconsistent?

UPDATE: For a slideshow of images of one of the Mexico pitchers warming up in the bullpen, click here. For more pics from yesterday’s game, click here.

I live in Tucson. I just moved here about three months ago. Recently, I told you that the local minor league team was leaving town.

Now it looks like spring training might be leaving for the sucktastic shores of the Phoenix metro area. The White Sox, the Diamondbacks and the Rockies all play their March games in Tucson.

Here’s why they might leave:

• Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, is building a stadium for the Cleveland Indians for 2009 and is in talks with the Rockies about the team moving its spring training home there.
• The White Sox have already announced plans to move to Glendale for the 2009 season. BUT, they are contractually obligated to find a replacement team in order to break their lease at Tucson Electric Park, which runs through 2012.
• If the White Sox move to Glendale and spring training in Tucson is reduced to two teams, the Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks can also break their leases.

So you can see how Tucson’s days of spring training baseball may be numbered.

Why does this matter? Because Tucson is a real place with real people and real buildings. This town has culture. I tell people lots of towns have lots of kitschy bars. But Tucson’s bars are kitschy by virtue of the fact that they just haven’t changed anything in the last 50 years. And I think that’s awesome.

The Phoenix suburbs are a monument to all that is soulless in America. They are shoddy modern construction. They are chain restaurants. They are sprawl.

Don’t let Tucson baseball die. If you’re a Tucson resident, write your local elected official. If you’re a Rockies, White Sox or Diamondbacks fan, call or email the team and tell them that Phoenix sucks and you don’t ever want to go there to watch a baseball game.

And if you’re smart, you’ll buy a plane ticket to Tucson right now and come watch baseball in Tucson this spring, while you still can.