Nearly 10,500 fans gathered to bid a farewell to the 2013 Major League Baseball Spring Training season Thursday afternoon.

It’s currently reminiscent of the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. But when the Chicago Cubs’ new spring training stadium and surrounding amenities are complete, there’s little doubt it will be among Mesa’s main attractions.

Now that the Chicago Cubs have secured a spring-training home in Mesa well into the future, the East Valley will soon welcome to the area the first of possibly many in a long line of Windy City favorites: Portillo’s Hot Dogs.

Mesa City Council could finalize a plan to bring the Oakland A's to Hohokam Stadium for spring training during its meeting Monday.

You’ve got to love living in the place everyone else wants to be.

Soccer and ball players will soon find more fields around Mesa for a game, now that the city has begun work on projects approved by voters in November’s bond election.

When Bill Keller landed a store manager’s job with Dillard’s department store in the Valley 34 years ago, his wife, Dianne, said she wasn’t excited about moving to Arizona, much less Mesa — from Minneapolis.

The Chicago Cubs kick-off the 2013 Spring Training season this month at Mesa's Hohokam Stadium. This year a total of 18 home games with one night game will close out their 37 years playing at Hohokam. The Cubs will be moving to their new home at Riverview Park in time for their 2014 Spring Training season.

A body found early Thursday among bushes in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shops at Mesa Riverview has been positively identified as the man who killed a company CEO and critically wounded a lawyer a day earlier, police said.

A valuable piece of the region’s economic impact puzzle came through a simple conversation between then Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell, local homebuilder Brad Curtis and a group of businessmen from Chase Bank a number of years ago.

In an announcement that a Chicago Cubs official said took the team by surprise, the Cubs and Arizona State University baseball officials have agreed to disagree.

It’s that time of year to get out and enjoy an entire day picking your favorite pumpkin, eating caramel apples, visiting a petting zoo and ending the night with fireworks and a haunted house. Or, to just take stroll through the pumpkin patch to snap a few photos with your family. Either way, the Valley has it all, and this is your one-stop guide for fall festivities in the East Valley.

It’s that time of year to get out and enjoy an entire day picking your favorite pumpkin, eating caramel apples, visiting a petting zoo and ending the night with fireworks and a haunted house. Or, to just take stroll through the pumpkin patch to snap a few photos with your family. Either way, the Valley has it all, and this is your one-stop guide for fall festivities in the East Valley.

Mesa City Councilwoman Dina Higgins is auctioning off the “shovelbat” she used to help break ground for the Chicago Cubs spring training facility, with proceeds benefiting Sunshine Acres Children’s Home.

A look at key Mesa facts and figures

The city of Mesa believes it will seal a deal to become the home of its second Cactus League team by the end of this year.

“Groundbreaking for what, a new Cubs spring training stadium in the middle of nowhere? What happened to the bill of goods that was sold to the Mesa voters with that slick artist’s rendition of Wrigleyville-West and Riverview Park? The whole reason for the $100 million bond obligation was for a ‘world-class venue’....not this field of dreams. The restaurants, trendy shops, the soccer fields, the baseball practice fields, the Riverview Lake Walk and picnic areas that now look to be five to 10 years down the road, pipe-dreams. Thanks for nothing but a $100 million debt.”

When Bill Keller landed a store manager’s job with Dillard’s department store in the Valley 34 years ago, his wife, Dianne, said she wasn’t excited about moving to Arizona, much less Mesa — from Minneapolis.