Tucson Ready for World Baseball Classic Spotlight

The city of Tucson is buzzing with excitement and with good reason. After nearly 15 years without professional baseball in the city, it will host a World Baseball Classic qualifier from March 2–6.

From 1947 through 2010, Major League Baseball was in Tucson each March for spring training. But in 2011, the last three teams to play in Tucson — the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies — joined the rest of the Cactus League in the Phoenix area.

Now, Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium, which hosted so many spring training games of the past, will be the site when Brazil, China, Colombia and Germany battle for two spots at the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

“We do feel some pressure,” said Nick Pazzi, director of Tucson Sports. “If we can show Major League Baseball that we have the capabilities to support them and host these events and that fans will come and buy tickets and fill the seats, that’s going to help us eventually try to get some spring training baseball back in Tucson.”

This showcase for not only MLB but to the world is something five years in the making for Tucson. The city was set to host this same event in March of 2020, with eight teams coming to the area.

“Most of the teams arrived here in February and then Covid hit and everything shut down and was canceled,” Pazzi said. “We had to scramble to get those teams home. So we knew that Tucson had potential to host because they obviously were going to give us a chance in 2020.”

Luckily for Pazzi, there is a man in Tucson who is both familiar with the city’s charm and with MLB. Blake Eager, executive director of the Southern Arizona Sports, Tourism and Film Authority, is a Tucson native who was drafted by the New York Mets in 2004 and spent four seasons in the Mets’ organization.

Eager spearheaded the WBC to Tucson push and eventual bid, bringing together his SASTFA team with Visit Tucson, Pima County, Kino Sports Complex, the Arizona Bowl and Mexican Baseball Fiesta. Eager also got local businesses involved.

“There’s so many people working on this event and I think that’s what really told WBC that this is a community that’s ripe for baseball and we’re ready to move forward in a singular direction with all of us working together,” Eager said. “We worked on a couple of other projects that unfortunately didn’t come to fruition, but we went really far down the road with them. This is so important because it’s the first time we’re going to have Major League Baseball players back in Tucson in the month of March since 2010.”

Community Rallies to Win the Bid

Putting in a bid with an event organizer is a process at any level. Doing so with MLB for an international event is next level.

“We collected information from the hotels and from the facility,” Pazzi said. “My sports coordinator, Bree Lopez, did most of the legwork on the bid. She put a big bid packet together that also included information on the Tucson airport and the flight availability. The bid included things that are going to attract people to come to Tucson.”

Many retired professional baseball players and managers live in Tucson or have a history in the city, including Terry Francona. Some of those former MLBers agreed to help the bid and reached out to Major League Baseball.

Once Tucson was announced as one of three finalists for the WBC Qualifier, it was time to put on the full court press.

“We invited Major League Baseball to Tucson so they could tour the facility,” Pazzi said. “We wined and dined them. We took them to El Charro — Ray Flores, the owner of El Charro Restaurants and Flores Concepts got involved — getting them good meals while they were here and showing them how great Tucson food is.”

After Tucson won the bid, MLB later told Pazzi that one of the prime reasons his city won was the amount of support shown by the community.

“All the people involved, all the people that showed up to that dinner that night to welcome them, all the people that showed up at the site tour at Kino Sports Complex to welcome them,” Pazzi said. “MLB said they could just tell that Tucson, as a community, wanted Major League Baseball in some form back.”

Putting Together the Logistical Puzzle

Once the bid was won, it was time to dive into all the facets required to host an international event. From security, lodging and travel to simple things like authentic food, there’s a lot to coordinate.

“We have a local security team and our local sheriff’s department, then you have the federal side of it with Major League Baseball,” Eager said. “Nowadays you’ve got to have dog sweeps, bomb sweeps — so much before the players even get to the field and then they get to the field it’s just a whole other thing. So you have to make sure that they’re secure and safe from the beginning to the end. From my standpoint, it was daunting just to look over that. There are so many things happening.”

Eager says WBC is arranging travel for the four teams and local resorts that partner with SASTFA and Visit Tucson have stepped up to host the teams. Everything else must be done locally.

“We have to handle ticket sales and marketing of the event,” said Pazzi. “I have two people in my department here and Blake is a one-person operation over there in his organization, so we needed some help. We have great connections with the Arizona Bowl, so we reached out and asked if they could help us with ticket sales and marketing since they do a giant event every year.”

“Pima County has done a great job at Kino Sports Complex of getting it completely up to date to meet all of MLB’s standards,” added Eager. “Brand new sod and they put in pretty much a whole new playing surface, which hasn’t been done since they built the field in 1996. They’ve got a video scoreboard, so they’ve done a ton of stuff to get it prepared. It meets all the specifications for MLB and for World Baseball Classic.”

Then there is the food situation. Tucson prides itself on its culinary scene, but even the best restaurants in the area will have trouble mimicking authentic food from these four countries.

“That’s one of the challenges — getting the true food from their culture for them to eat while they’re here,” Pazzi said. “A lot of times it’s been Americanized and it’s not the same as what they’re used to eating. So we help them try to find a catering company or a restaurateur here locally that’s willing to produce meals that mimic how it’s made and served in their home country.”

The Tucson team is hoping for about 2,500 spectators for each game and say so far the split looks to be about 80 percent domestic fans and 20 percent international. The estimated economic impact for the region is conservatively set at $2.75 million, but organizers are hopeful it will exceed that number.

“This event could be the launching pad for us to bring MLB back to Tucson,” Pazzi said. “If we pull this off successfully, then why can’t we get two teams to just come down here for a three-game series during spring training?”

“At the end of the day, it’s a community that was based on baseball forever, that lost it — and understands what we lost — and now has the opportunity to bring it back and give something back to the community that really needs it,” Eager said.