Hi Corbett Field

The field opened in 1927 as Randolph Municipal Baseball Park. It got its current name in 1951, renamed for Hiram "Hi" Corbett, an Arizona state senator who did something concrete: he convinced Bill Veeck to move the Cleveland Indians' spring training from Florida to Tucson in 1947. Veeck's stated reason was to escape Florida's Jim Crow laws. That decision didn't just give Tucson a team — it launched the Cactus League, the spring training circuit that would eventually transform Arizona's relationship with professional baseball.

The Indians trained here for 45 years. During that run, in 1989, the production of *Major League* filmed spring training scenes at the field, using University of Arizona baseball players as extras. The Indians left after 1992. The Colorado Rockies arrived the following year for their inaugural spring training and stayed through 2010, when Cactus League baseball followed the money north to the Phoenix area and Tucson was left with the empty calendar.

What stayed was the field itself — 9,500 seats inside Gene C. Reid Park, with playing dimensions and an elevation of 2,480 feet that make it a different proposition than the sea-level parks back east. In 2012, the University of Arizona Wildcats moved their baseball program here from campus, and the place came back to life. The university signed a 25-year lease in 2017 and now runs the stadium day-to-day.

The field has hosted Hall of Famers, a Hollywood film crew, two major league franchises, and a college program that advanced to the 2012 College World Series in its first season at this address. The spring training era is over. What's left is a real ballpark, used by a real team, in a city park that still knows how to fill seats.