Spring Training Online

The official numbers confirm what many in baseball have been saying: attendance is down 5 percent in Cactus League games this spring despite the full-time addition of the Indians and Dodgers to the mix.

That's a surprise: many expected the Cactus League to receive a boost from the move of Los Angeles and Cleveland from Florida and the move of the White Sox from Tucson to Phoenix.

In his annual spring meeting with reporters, Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney admits the team's days at Mesa's HoHoKam Park are numbered and says the team is looking at a new spring-training home.

The issue: the team practices at Fitch Field and plays at HoHoKam Park. While HoHoKam Park is a perfectly fine facility and the Cubs are a great draw -- perennially leading the Cactus League in attendance -- the ballpark lacks the luxury amenities you find in the new spring facilities. When you have luxury, you have bigger bucks (in theory; the Dodgers and the White Sox found out differently this spring at Camelback Ranch Stadium). And with Tom Ricketts closing on the $900-million purchase of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, the more bucks the better.

The only team that entered February games selling out every fixed seat for every spring-training matchup?

Not the Red Sox.

Not the Yankees.

It was the Tampa Bay Rays, who sold out every fixed seat at Charlotte County Sports Park well in advance of the team's first game of 2009.

Spring-training attendance is down some 20 percent this spring when compared to 2008, as teams struggle with smaller crowds.

We all knew this would be a rough spring in Vero Beach, the first for the community after the departure of the Dodgers from Dodgertown. Now Indian River County is scrambling to bring back baseball, but the chances are amateurs, not pros, will on the field.