Tucson Electric Park

Tucson Electric Park (TEP) is a stadium in Tucson, Arizona. It was home to the Tucson Sidewinders. It is named for the local electric utility, Tucson Electric Power. Opened in 1998, it seats 11,500 fans. TEP also hosts spring training games; the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks share the park for Cactus League games each March. Both teams also have their minor league complexes on-site. Concerts are often held at the stadium as well.

The main stadium building is located at coord|32|10|34|N|110|56|02|W.

Trivia

* Tucson Electric Park was the site of where Randy Johnson threw a pitch that fatally hit a bird. The pitch was ruled no pitch.cite web
last = ESPN.com News Services
first =
title = Bird 'explodes' after flying in path of fastball
publisher = ESPN.com
date = 2001-03-26
url = http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2001/0325/1161522.html
accessdate = 2008-06-11 ]

Future

The Chicago White Sox have an agreement to move to Goodyear in a stadium that is to be completed by the 2009 season. However, the Sox's lease on TEP lasts through 2012. In order to leave TEP early, the Sox have proposed a youth baseball academy backed by Major League Baseball surrounding TEP. The Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies, spring training occupant of Tucson's Hi Corbett Field, have indicated that they would both need Tucson to have 3 teams in order to continue playing there. [ http://www.pima.gov/current/White.Sox.economic.development.proposal.pdf ]

References

External links

* [http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/ballpark/page.jsp?ymd=20051221&content_id=36859&vkey=ballpark_t549&fext=.jsp&sid=t549 Official site on "tucsonsidewinders.com"]
* [http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/spring_training/y2006/ballpark.jsp?c_id=cws Official site on "whitesox.com"]