As much as I love sports in general, I don’t think there’s anything quite like the beginning of spring training or exhibition season in the Cactus League.

The biggest cities in the United States have, at most, two major league baseball teams playing during the regular season, but this time of year, we have 15.

And those 15 teams are playing in state-of-the-art stadiums in the best weather in the country. We, who live here, can’t be blamed for taking all of it for granted. But now, as Cactus League play begins in earnest all over the Valley, sympathetically picture a couple sitting in almost any other part of the country, wondering how deep the snow drifts will be in the morning, wondering if the car will start and if it does, how icy the streets will be.

Then, on their TV screen, up pops a picture of baseball fans reclining on a grassy hillside. Their deepest concern is running out of sun block. Those fans left $632 million here last year and even the Arizona State Legislature can’t mess that up.

I’m Pat McMahon.

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