Atlanta Braves spring training may return to WPB

The Atlanta Braves baseball team is shopping for a new spring training facility in Florida and may return to West Palm Beach, the spring training home of the Major League Baseball franchise from 1962 to 1997.

“We have a chance for a homecoming now, we hope,’’ Braves President John Schuerholz told the Palm Beach Post.

Schuerholz told the newspaper the Braves
plan to move their spring training location either to the east of west coast of Florida, where other so-called Grapefruit League teams are prepare for the regular Major League Baseball (MLB) season.

The Atlanta Braves team now occupies spring training facility in Disney World and plans to move to a new coastal location in 2018.

Last year, Palm Beach County allocated $113 million of tourist tax money to help the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros finance a $144 million facility in West Palm Beach, called the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, which the MLB teams expect to start sharing in 2017.

An additional $50 million in funding from the state government will support the development on an old landfill south of 45 Street in West Palm Beach.

Both the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros will relocate their spring training operations to West Palm Beach from Central Florida. [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth