White Sox leaving Tucson; are D-Backs next?

Spring training became more cumbersome and costly for the Diamondbacks on Tuesday when the Chicago White Sox were permitted to buy out their lease in Tucson, a move that seems to make the D-Backs' departure from the city all but inevitable.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors agreed to accept the White Sox's offer of $5 million to break their lease and move to Glendale next spring, leaving the D-Backs and Colorado as the only teams based in Tucson.

While the D-Backs' lease in Tucson does not expire until 2012, the team already has explored relocating to the Valley.

"We are looking at all our options," D-Backs president Derrick Hall said from the major league meetings in New York. "We're listening to four or five (Valley developers). They (Tucson officials) know that. It is safe to say we are looking in all directions - north, south, east and west."

The Gila River Indian Community recently commissioned a study to determine the viability of building a spring training facility, and appears to be one of the candidates.

Hall said the D-Backs would like to remain in Tucson, but have told city officials they would like more teams involved.

"We've made it clear we want four teams to be there," Hall said.

If a new spring training facility is built, the D-Backs also would like to be part of that, rather than remain at Tucson Electric Park, which is in far south Tucson and away from restaurants and hospitality.

Ideally, Hall said, a new facility would be built in northwestern Tucson, with easy access to Interstate 10 in order to facilitate travel to the Valley.

As part of the White Sox's buyout, the team agreed to continue to help city officials locate another team for Tucson.

Hall also said Tucson officials told him they are trying to lure teams from Florida, or even from other Valley sites.

At the same time, Hall said the D-Backs are under time constraints and would like see positive movement by this time next year.

"We're also in a time crunch," he said, saying that the construction of a new Valley facility could take 18 months to two years.

"After 2009, we will have to have a pretty good understanding of where we are going to be" in 2012.

Colorado is now free to move, since its lease stipulates that it can move if there are only two teams in Tucson.

The Rockies have talked to officials in Marana, north of Tucson, but are not believed to be actively looking to move from Hi Corbett Field.

The White Sox will share a spring training facility with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are also beginning their first full spring training season at the new Glendale facility.

The ballpark, under construction on a 125-acre site at Camelback Road and 107th Avenue, will be the largest in the Cactus League - with 10,000 fixed seats and capacity for an additional 3,000 people on the outfield lawn.

"The city of Glendale has done a tremendous job of creating a state-of-the-art spring training facility for the Dodgers and White Sox," said White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.

"Glendale has become a first-class, year-round sports destination that our fans will thoroughly enjoy."

The White Sox began holding spring training in Tucson in 1998 after the team moved from Sarasota, Fla., where it trained from 1960-97. Its contract with Tucson was scheduled to run until 2012 before the buyout agreement was reached Tuesday.