The Arizona Baseball Museum, the first permanent baseball museum in the state, is only weeks away from opening in Mesa.<\/p>\n
A grand opening festival will accompany its debut at the Mesa Historical Museum campus, 2345 N. Horne, on Feb. 21 \u2013 two days after Spring Training Season starts in Arizona.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The state’s only baseball museum will open in February in Mesa.<\/p>\n
The museum traces baseball\u2019s deep roots in Arizona\u2014from the sport\u2019s early days in the Arizona Territory through the birth of Spring Training, the formation of the Cactus League and the generations of fans and players who helped define the game in the state.<\/p>\n
Exhibits will feature historic photographs, rare memorabilia, personal stories and rotating special exhibitions highlighting Arizona\u2019s unique role in baseball history.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaseball has been part of Arizona\u2019s story for more than a century,\u201d said Susan Ricci, executive director of the Mesa Historical Museum. \u201cAfter two years of hard work and fundraising, we are proud to open this museum just in time for spring training.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opening culminates the vision that local baseball advocates and city leaders had discussed for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Buoyed initially by a $100,000 grant from the State Heritage Fund, Mesa officials and community partners formally launched a capital campaign in 2023 to transform the museum\u2019s large auditorium into a dedicated baseball experience. The effort was backed by the City of Mesa, Visit Mesa and the Mesa Preservation Foundation.<\/p>\n
At the time, Ricci said the state grant provided the long-awaited catalyst to move the project forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been discussed for years \u2026 and it\u2019s finally happening,\u201d Ricci said during the campaign\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n
The goal was to raise approximately $500,000 to renovate the nearly 4,000-square-foot auditorium, allowing the Mesa Historical Museum to display, for the first time, the full breadth of its baseball collection in one permanent space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have just hundreds of photos and objects and baseball memorabilia that we\u2019ve had in our collection for years,\u201d Ricci said then. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at a space that\u2019s probably 10 times what we have now, where visitors can actually spend time with the stories instead of seeing them piecemeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricci saw the vision reach completion despite some major setbacks.<\/p>\n
In 2024, crews had to replace cracked main beans in the 111-year-old building\u2019s auditorium, which Ricci said will house the baseball museum.<\/p>\n
The building once housed the old Lehi Elementary School.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found that a major support truss was broken in at least two places, making it unsafe and it needed to be replaced,\u201d Ricci said at the time.<\/p>\n
Arizona became a spring training destination over 80 years ago, reshaping both the state\u2019s cultural identity and its economy. Yet until now, that story had never been told through a permanent, statewide baseball museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be the first\u2014and right now the only\u2014museum strictly dedicated to baseball in Arizona,\u201d Ricci said during the planning stages. \u201cWe want to tell the full human story of the game here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Museum officials believe the Arizona Baseball Museum will become a significant draw for visitors, particularly during Spring Training, when attendance at the Mesa Historical Museum traditionally doubles.<\/p>\n
City leaders also viewed the project as both a cultural and economic investment. The renovated space was designed not only to house exhibits but also to be rentable for private events, helping make the museum financially sustainable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Baseball Museum, the first permanent baseball museum in the state, is only weeks away from opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[69709,5,5250,69710,151,69711],"class_list":{"0":"post-524833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-arizona-baseball-museum","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cactus-league","11":"tag-mesa-historical-museum","12":"tag-spring-training","13":"tag-susan-ricci"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115909428852978389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}