New spring training ballpark to open Feb. 26

 The Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies will be playing in their new Salt River Fields at Talking Stick ballpark for the 2011 Cactus League season, starting with a game on Feb. 26.

The $100 million ballpark has seats for 11,000 fans, with 7,000 fixed seats and 4,000 spots on the lawn outside the outfield walls. It also features three party decks and a 24-by-48-foot scoreboard that displays high-definition pictures and uses LED technology.

The stadium is being shared by the Diamondbacks and Rockies, who had been based in Tucson but wanted to end the two-hour trips up to the Phoenix area to play half their games in other teams' ballparks.

The new ballpark was designed so that many of the seats will be in the shade when games start and 85 percent of the seats will be shaded by the late innings, when temperatures can reach the 90s during sunny days in the latter part of March. The ballpark also offers unprecedented player access that includes walkways above pitches' practice mounds and hitters' batting cages.

The Diamondbacks also have pledged to rotate players into a designated autograph area.

The stadium is built on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community's reservation near the intersection of Pima Road and Via de Ventura in Scottsdale and just west of Loop 101.

Tickets for Diamondbacks and Rockies spring training games are on sale at mlb.com.