Spring Training Schedule

If you are planning a trip to Florida or Arizona to see your favorite baseball team during Spring Training, then you want to find out what the spring training schedule is as soon as possible.

Spring training usually starts in February with Pitchers and Catchers reporting for duty, but the baseball games themselves usually begin during the first week of March.For the 2010 spring training season, a brief glance at schedules indicates that the first games will be on March 3, 2010.

For more dates and schedules, most baseball teams start to announce tentative dates in the Fall, usually September or October and tickets can go on sale as early as December. You may want to get the jump on things even before schedules are finalized however.

For example, the Cincinnati Reds are already taking deposits for tickets to their spring training games in 2010 now.The Boston Red Sox are also already selling tickets (as part of their travel packages) and haven't even confirmed all their games yet! Additionally, the Toronto Blue Jays will be selling single game tickets for 36 hours only on December 3rd this year, before closing sales and resuming ticketing again in January.

To check dates and find out when tickets go on sale, check your team's official website. Spring Training info should be prominently listed on the front page. For example, here's the Red Sox ticketing info for 2010. To get the jump on things, sign up for your team's email newsletter if they have one. You'll get advance notice of tickets sales and announced dates, usually before it hits the website.

Also, it's important to note teams that are being shuffled about in the upcoming season. The Reds are moving from Florida to Arizona next year. These kinds of moves don't happen that often, but you don't want to miss the news when it occurs. Sometimes a team will change leagues entirely, or they will just move to a different location within their current league.

Cactus League is located in Arizona and the Grapefruit League is located in Florida. Both locales are usually sunny and warm in March and it is a great time to get away from those states that are quite a bit chillier that time of year. What better excuse for a trip than baseball? If you want to travel with other fans, most of the MLB teams have spring training travel packages that you can buy. These cover everything from tickets to hotel accommodations and local transportation (generally a car rental), as well as exclusive opportunities to mingle with baseball players and get cool merchandise. You can find most of the available packages linked from the MLB's travel page

As far as finding your team, league memberships are mostly common sense. The majority of teams east of the Mississippi do their spring training in Florida. Teams west of the Mississippi practice in Arizona.

Cactus league members are the Diamondbacks, Cubs, White Sox, Reds, Indians, Rockies, Royals, Angels, Dodgers, Brewers, the Athletics, Padres, Giants, Mariners, and the Rangers.

Grapefruit league includes the Braves, Orioles, Red Sox (yay!), Tigers, Marlins, Astros, Twins, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals, Rays, Blue Jays, and the Nationals.