Sloan Park construction update, January 19

There’s work happening at the Cubs’ Spring Training home

By Al Yellon@bleedcubbieblue Jan 19, 2023, 1:00pm CST

MESA, Arizona — For many years I chronicled the 1060 Project, the work on renovating and restoring Wrigley Field.

Today, I’m switching things up a bit, and will tell you about the new scoreboard that’s going up at the Cubs’ Spring Training home, Sloan Park.

Sloan Park opened in 2014 and almost from Day 1, its scoreboard was antiquated and out of date. Here’s a photo I took of it last November during an Arizona Fall League game:

As you can see, the scores themselves are hard to read, especially with the new nets that are now required at MLB parks, and the board is quite small, about the same size as the advertising boards on either size.

I’m happy to report to you that a new video board is being installed at Sloan Park and will be ready for the opening of the 2023 spring season, Saturday, February 25 when the Cubs face the Giants. That’s just five weeks from this Saturday.

Here’s a photo from the rear, taken this morning, that shows that the new board will be significantly larger than the old one:

The “Sloan Park” sign shown on the November photo is resting in a parking lot, waiting to be reinstalled:

The gallery below has more photos of the scoreboard construction area from various angles. The clock from the old board has been installed on the top of the board, but hasn’t been connected to power yet (it wasn’t 9:20 a.m. when I took these photos.)

Also, in case you’re wondering about the aerial photo at the top of this post that shows Sloan Park and the construction area, no, that’s not from a drone. I was on a flight landing at PHX on Tuesday and fortuitously, the landing pattern took the plane right over the Cubs spring complex and I was able to get that shot out the window.

I hope to post further updates on the Sloan Park scoreboard project between now and the spring opener February 25.