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Cubs set new Cactus League crowd record in Mesa
It didn't take the Chicago Cubs long to break their own record for the biggest crowd ever at a Cactus League baseball game, already topping a mark set last year in the inaugural season at the club's new Mesa ballpark.
A record crowd of 15,331 people poured through the gates at Sloan Park on Friday, March 6 for an afternoon game against the Cincinnati Reds. Friday's game was just the second of 2015 at the stadium near Dobson Road and Rio Salado Parkway.
The previous single-game attendance record was set on March 25, 2014, when the Cubs played the Los Angeles Angels at the same ballpark and drew 15,276 fans. The Cubs played just two other games at Sloan Park — last year's finale and this year's opener — before beating that mark.
Officially, the stadium capacity is listed at 14,156, according to the Cactus League website. But the Cubs broke the 15,000 mark six times in 15 home games last season and has done so two out of three times this year, according to attendance figures from espn.com.
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The Cubs' spring crowds are larger than those of some Major League Baseball teams during the regular season. The Tampa Bay Rays, for example, drew fewer than 15,000 fans for about three dozen games last year, according to espn.com statistics. The Cleveland Indians fell below that mark about 30 times.
It was also a record-setting weekend for the Arizona Diamondbacks after the team announced Sunday the largest crowd ever at its spring home, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, on the Salt River Reservation near Scottsdale. A crowd of 12,976 people watched the D-backs beat the Giants 10-5 in split-squad action.
Salt River Fields has 7,000 fixed seats and 4,000 on the lawn, so anything above that figure is considered a sellout, team communications manager Katie Krause said. Attendance can climb above 11,000 based on the number of fans at the stadium's three party decks, she said.
The D-backs' biggest crowd at Salt River Fields last year came on a Sunday — March 16 — against the Milwaukee Brewers. Attendance was announced at 12,871 for that game.
source:http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2015/03/09/mesa-cubs-cactus-league-record/24654991/
