History museums are rarely born from bold vision. They’re more often the product of patient, steady stewardship. But one Mesa institution has upended that convention entirely, betting everything on an unlikely dream: the state’s first Baseball History Museum, now open inside the storied old Lehi Auditorium.
We first met Susan Ricci, the Director of the Mesa Historical Museum, when she agreed to exhibit the Capstone Copper Trophy — a 30-inch copper trophy we obtained for the final tournament of the Arizona Territorial Base Ball League. The tournament, held in Globe as part of Old Dominion Days, celebrates the early ties between mining and baseball. The trophy itself dates back
to 1946 with its own storied history.
Since that time, we have followed Ricci’s efforts to open the state’s first baseball history museum. We interviewed her recently on her
thoughts about the new space, the challenges of nonprofit leadership and funding, and how she put together a coalition of volunteers and major sponsors to bring it all home.
When Ricci first walked into the Lehi Auditorium that sat on museum grounds, she didn’t see the future home of a new museum which would tell the story of Arizona’s rich baseball heritage. What she saw instead were shelves packed with decades of storage — stage buggies, wagons, boxes of artifacts, and museum overflow that had accumulated over the years.
“It was so full,” Ricci recalled. “Everything we owned was in there. It had buggies, a prairie schooner, shelves and shelves of things. You don’t walk into a
building like that and think, ‘Oh, I can just turn this into a museum.’”
Yet after years of planning, fundraising, and clearing space piece by piece, Ricci has done exactly that. This spring, the Mesa Historical Museum opened the Arizona Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in the renovated Lehi building on the museum’s property. It’s an ambitious project that has quickly drawn visitors during Arizona’s busy spring training season. For Ricci, the opening
represents one of the most significant milestones of her six years leading the nonprofit museum.
Baseball had long been part of the Mesa Historical Museum’s programming, but in a limited way. Earlier exhibits focused largely on the Cactus League Hall of Fame, featuring plaques and stories about the league’s inductees. Ricci felt that approach was too narrow for a museum that wanted to tell the broader story of baseball in Arizona.
“If we were just the Cactus League Hall of Fame, then I couldn’t tell Japanese internment baseball stories,” Ricci said. “I couldn’t talk about Native Americans in baseball or the mining town teams or all the other stories connected to Arizona.”
Instead, she envisioned something larger: a museum that would explore the entire arc of the sport in the state.
Visitors now begin their tour with baseball’s earliest roots in Arizona: games played during the Civil War era and on military outposts before spreading to mining camps and frontier towns.
From there, the exhibits move forward through the decades, touching on topics such as spring training, minor league clubs and Arizona’s impact on the national
game.
“I like to be chronological,” Ricci said. “When you walk in, the first thing you should learn is how baseball even started here.”
While the museum celebrates familiar baseball history, Ricci is especially focused on uncovering lesser-known stories.
One section of the museum highlights diversity in the sport, including exhibits on Japanese American baseball teams and players who continued the game even during the internment era of World War II.
Future exhibits will explore Native American players, local Negro League teams and other overlooked chapters in the sport’s history.
“There are so many stories,” Ricci said. “I want people to walk out of here thinking about something they never knew before and saying, ‘Wow, baseball is more interesting than I thought.’”
Exhibits will rotate over time to keep the museum fresh for repeat visitors.
The idea to convert the Lehi building into the baseball museum came partly from necessity.
As the executive director of a nonprofit museum, Ricci constantly faces the challenge of generating enough revenue to sustain operations.
“Our small history museum can only bring in so much income,” she said. “We do about seven events a year, and I’m tapped out.”
The Lehi building offered a potential solution, but only if it could serve multiple purposes.
The newly renovated space functions not only as a museum gallery, but also as a rentable event venue. Display cases are mounted on wheels so they can be moved aside for meetings, receptions, screenings and community events.
One upcoming program, for example, will feature a documentary screening about Hall of Fame player Dick Allen with a panel discussion afterward.
“Bada bing, now you have an event,” Ricci said.
The rental income, she hopes, will help stabilize the museum’s finances in the years ahead.
Bringing the project across the finish line required help from across Mesa.
The City of Mesa provided key support and helped identify the final funding needed to complete construction. Grants, private donors and community fundraising campaigns also contributed.
The Mesa Hohokam organization secured a naming opportunity within the project, while local donors funded other components of the museum.
The Mesa Leadership Class of 2026 even adopted the museum as its class project, raising funds, putting in lots of sweat equity and organizing volunteers to build a new courtyard.
“The landscaper donated all the materials and labor,” Ricci said. “And Mesa Leadership organized everything. It was incredible.”
Ricci admits that when she first accepted the job as the museum’s director, she imagined it would focus mostly on historical research and exhibitions.
Instead, she discovered the role is just as much about fundraising.
“I didn’t realize how much of this job would be fundraising,” she said. “It’s probably 50-50 museum work and fundraising.”
Her background in nonprofit development turned out to be invaluable. Before coming to Mesa, Ricci spent years helping organizations launch fundraising programs and capital campaigns.
Her advice to other nonprofits is simple: Think creatively and give supporters something in return.
“You have to offer people value for their dollar,” she said. “You can’t just ask for
donations anymore.”
Events, from craft fairs to themed festivals, can help organizations raise funds while engaging the public.
Her upcoming Mew-seum Cat Fest on March 21 is a good example. Gifted a large and quirky collection of cat-themed art by an obscure artist, she was inspired by a friend who is a cat author and lover, and turned this into an annual event for the museum, which attracts thousands each year.
And, of course, history is involved. From ancient times to cats serving in the military during WWII and their inclusion in our arts and culture, you’ll find it all here during Cat Fest.
She says she buys cat items all year long from thrift shops and other out-
lets for this event, and at the end of the day, their cat-themed gift shop looks like a Black Friday event.
“It’s crazy,” Ricci said. “But people love it.”
With the Arizona Baseball History Museum now open, the museum is already seeing the payoff.
Spring training visitors have begun discovering the new attraction.
On some days, Ricci says, guests are lined up at the front desk waiting to buy tickets, something the museum has rarely experienced before.
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