Road Trip: Welcome to the Cactus League

Kevin Rehberg is the Owner/Managing Editor of WestSide Culture, a site dedicated to life, beer, business and sports on the West Coast. Check it out at http://westsideculture.com. Or don't. Either way.

I grew up in Arizona a Cubs fan, rooting for Ryne Sandberg while attending Giants Spring Training games. In 1998 I became a D'Backs fan when baseball expanded to the Valley. Now I spend my time in San Diego emailing Josh Byrnes bi-weekly, requesting he hire me as his Assistant GM. I remind him that we have Starbucks and baseball as a common bond, and even that we both lived in AZ at the same time. (He has yet to respond).

San Diego has a lot going for it. The Pacific Ocean, 75 degree temperatures 355 days a year, PETCO Park and Byrnes taking over a rising Padres club. What doesn't San Diego have? Well, besides any sort of professional sports championship to speak of, it also doesn't have the Cactus League.

My annual pilgrimage to the Cactus League is my favorite time of year. Having tickets to every San Francisco Giants home Spring Training game makes Scottsdale Stadium base camp. From there I'll jump off to a few other ballparks. This Spring, there are 10 players on my watch list. I'll be playing close attention to each of them, in between stealing glances at the Arizona State University female coeds.

New to the Cactus League and worth the price of admission are Albert "Deep Pockets" Pujols, "If The Yu Fits" Darvish and Yoenis "Cuban Refugee" Cespedes. CJ Wilson, Aaron Harang-utan and Melky "Milk Man" Cabrera are each dubbed as possible saviors to their respective teams. Prospect wise, Mike "Gone Fishing For" Trout, Trevor "Bauer Outage", Mike "Mickey" Moustakas and Jesus "Not Miguel" Montero are circled as future, can't miss stars. I would include Josh "The Relapse" Hamilton in this list of players, but he'll probably be in the lawn seats drinking with the ASU coeds, a plan I obviously approve of.

The games don't count, still they are going to be fun to watch. So, bust out the eye-black, grab some sunflower seeds, peanuts, a micro-brew and settle in. Baseball is here.

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