Arizona homes for A’s, Giants thinning out amid pandemic

change.”

Many people had planned to visit the Valley of the Sun this week to watch spring training games. Plenty of fans canceled flights after Thursday’s announcement that baseball was shutting down, but enough folks fol

Making the best of their situation, San Francisco's Caitlyn Schalih, Julie Koppel and Nina Manke have some fun upon visiting Arizona’s Scottsdale Stadium, spring home of lowed through with their plans that Scottsdale isn’t a ghost town.

That may change in a hurry, however. Next weekend isn’t expected to be nearly as crowded.

“We haven’t quantified the financial impact, but we can measure in home games,” said Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, whose town hosted 10 of the Giants’ 16 scheduled home games before the shutdown.

“It’s a significant event for us in downtown Scottsdale. We’re lucky enough to have a spring training field right in the middle of Old Town. It’s great for Giants fans who come to visit, and it’s a natural disappointment not to have it.”

The Cactus League, counting 15 big-league teams at 10 facilities, is an economic driver for the area. In 2018, Arizona State’s Carey School of Business found Cactus League games generated a $373 million boost to the state’s GDP that year. Per the study, out-of-state spring training fans usually spent four days in Arizona, with the median traveling party spending $405 per day.

John Giles, mayor of Mesa, where the A’s hold camp, said an earlier start to spring training the last couple of years led to lighter crowds for early games. Giles said canceling later games this year would mark “a huge blow” to the region but was “the right call to make” by MLB amid a health crisis.

“I think we’ve already seen an impact to our hospitality

Rich Nance of Brentwood takes a photo of a hat at the team shop of Scottsdale Stadium, spring home of the Giants. The financial impact of the call to cancel spring training could be severe.

Travis Chock, CEO of the apparel shop Baseballism, which has an outlet in Scottsdale, Ariz. industry,” Giles said, “and I think that’s likely attributed to the coronavirus.”

Travis Chock is CEO of Baseballism, the Scottsdale apparel outlet that drew the line of customers Saturday, the wait lasting up to an hour. He has 11 stores, one across the street from Oracle Park, and said the MLB closure will hurt sales.

“It kills us,” said Chock, 37. “We have six stores outside ballparks. We’re having 30 layoffs (among 150 retail staff employees). It’s going to be tough on us. We’re going into hibernation because of this. We’re strong online, so we hope to weather the storm.”

Chock plans for a similar cap giveaway next Saturday and expects far fewer people. Then again, “We opened today because we advertised this. We didn’t expect this many people.”

Pless, who’s here from

Wisconsin with his friend and their wives celebrating their 50th wedding anniversaries, were hoping to catch a few spring training games. They had to adjust their schedule.

So did Rich Nance, 47, of Brentwood, who flew to Arizona on Friday morning with two buddies, Jason Moore and Jeff Dix, also from the East Bay, and had planned to attend as many as six games over a three-day span — day games in one park, night games in another — plus a Flogging Molly concert in the area.

All canceled. So they waited in line at Baseballism and then walked to Scottsdale Stadium to visit the Giants’ Dugout Store, which remains open and continues to do good business. The group was considering a trip to Sedona, a couple of hours away.

“Baseball is a constant companion,” Nance said. “It takes your mind off things. It’s an escape. Now you don’t have that.”

Ben Grindel of North Scottsdale brought his two young sons to the apparel shop. They usually attend a half-dozen Cactus League games and got to three before it was shut down. When Grindel was asked what the family would do without baseball, 9-year-old Braden said, “Can we just climb the trees in our backyard?”

In nearby Mesa, two normal hubs of Cactus League activity sat dormant Friday. At Hohokam Stadium, the A’s spring home, Kim Winkelmann and Mary Creason stood outside the gates beyond left field in the morning, peering at the unused field. The Cubs fans from Oakford, Ill., said they had decided to spend the day driving around to empty ballparks.

“We don’t have anything else to do,” Winkelmann said.

A day earlier, they’d been getting ready to watch the Cubs play the Dodgers at Sloan Park in Mesa when spring training was canceled.

“It’s going to be tough on us. We’re going into hibernation.”