3. Venues
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
The venue pictured above, Hammond Stadium, has been home to the Minnesota Twins since 1991. The exterior was built with Churchill Downs in mind, the famous Thoroughbred horse racetrack in Louisville, KY.
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McKechnie Field is the oldest venue in existence. It was opened in 1923 in Bradenton, FL, and was first home to the St. Louis Cardinals. Since 1969, the Pittsburgh Pirates have called it their spring training home. At present, only two big league stadiums — Fenway Park and Wrigley Field — have housed the game of pro baseball for a longer period in the United States.
The newest stadium is Sloan Park, which opened last year in Mesa, AZ and is home to the Chicago Cubs. With a capacity of 15,000, it is the largest stadium in either the Grapefruit or Cactus leagues.
The $100 million Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, AZ, is home to both the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies as a training facility. It opened in 2011 complete with two separate 85,000-square-foot clubhouses for each squad and 12 total practice fields. It represents the first ever MLB park to be built on Native American land.