Action at the 2014 Tucson Mexican Baseball Festival.Listen:
Teams from Mexico's top baseball league will join two American minor league teams in Tucson for Mexican Beisbol Spring Training next month.
The games will start March 13 and take place on weekends over the rest of the month at the Kino Stadium complex on Tucson's South Side. Each weekend will have a Friday night game, a Saturday doubleheader, and a Sunday afternoon game.
La Liga de Beisbol's Toros de Tijuana, Tigres de Quintana Roo, Piratas de Campech, and Rojos del Aguila de Veracruz will play each weekend, with AAA affiliates for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs each taking part for one weekend.
Tucson tourism officials see Mexican Beisbol Spring Training as another chance for the Tucson area to capitalize on visitors from Mexico while at the same time bringing preseason baseball back to Tucson.
“You’ve heard us speak many, many times on how much money people from Mexico spend here in Tucson," said Visit Tucson's Felipe Garcia, "close to $1 billion spent annually on over 20 million visits by Mexican nationals to the state of Arizona.”
Organizers said the teams alone are responsible for 3,000 hotel room nights booked in Tucson.
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