My wife and I are planning a spring trip to Tucson for the Rockies spring training. Need some tips on hotels, restaraunts, best way to get autographs and visit with the players, etc. Can anybody help us out? Plan to be there about 5 days in mid-March.

The best way to get autographs is to hang by the big league practice field (it's the one furthest from the parking lot) during batting practice, pretty much all morning until the game. Pitchers tend to take BP in the hour or so before the game.

I definitely recommend hanging around the minor league fields during scrimmages. The last two years, I saw Christian Friedrich snapping off knee-buckling curveballs, saw Chris Nelson and Brandon Durden square off and bumped into Michael McKenry, Chris Nelson, Casey Weathers, and ahem, Woody Paige.

As for hotels, I just cheaped out on one of the many Motel 6's. Are you going to the road games (I recommend)? Unless they play @ the DBacks, it's a solid two hour drive to any road game.

Thanks for the autograph tips. Sounds like we need to be there early in the day, 8 a.m. or so? Planning (depending on the schedule) to go up to Phoenix for a game as well. Looking at a DoubleTree at Reid Park which is close to Hi Corbett. My wife wants to stay at the El Conquistador up north near Oro Valley. Its pretty posh and the golf is cheap for guests.

I go to school in Tucson, not too sure about the double tree bc i've never stayed there but it looks pretty nice from the outside and is really close to hi corbett. If you do end up staying at el conquistador it is about a 30 minute drive but a really nice course. A couple other courses are the ritz-carlton (jack nicklaus design) and La Ventana, both of those are amazing courses but again it's going to be a 20-30 minute drive to hi corbett.

Yeah, I know about the drive time (I lived in Tucson in the early 90's). It is closer to Mesa/Phoenix if we stay at the El Conquistador and my wife really likes the amenities, but I like the idea of being close to the ball fields at Hi Corbett. Is Randolph Park still as a good a course as it used to be? How about the availability of tee times that time of year?

Thanks for the info on the other courses. I'll check into them. La Ventana was an awesome experience back in the 90's and I'm sure that hasn't changed!? What about Silverbell (I think I have the name right)?

Randolph is the course that I mostly play at, and I think its a decent course. Everyone that I play with says that it has gone down in recent years tho, but i still think its fun to play and during ST a lot of the Rockies players and front office staff play there.

Tee times will probably be pretty hard to come by because it is in season, but if ur planning this trip now you should be set.

La Ventana is awesome, that whole resort is pretty sweet to go to. I have never played Silverbell, but i have heard that it is similar to Randolph bc it is run by Tucson City Golf.

If ur looking to plan ur whole trip around the Rockies ST then i would probably go with Randolph, but if you want a golf getaway as well I would probably go with one of the resorts. Either way you can't go wrong with golf and baseball in the spring.