Professional sports teams in Arizona Professional sports teams in Arizona Arizona has four Major League sports teams, all within the Phoenix metropolitan area, plus a professional WNBA team. The Arizona Diamondbacks are a professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They play their home games at Chase Field. They were founded in 1998 as an expansion team in the National League's West Division of the MLB. They became the fastest expansion team to win a World Series title (four seasons) when they beat three-time defending champ the New York Yankees in 2001. The Phoenix Suns play in the NBA's Pacific Division and are the only
Baseball in Japan by their sponsoring companies and do not receive salaries as baseball players but as company employees. The best teams in these circuits are determined via the Intercity Baseball Tournament and the Industrial League National Tournament. The level of play in these leagues is very competitive; Industrial League players are often selected to represent Japan in international tournaments and Major League Baseball players such as Hideo Nomo (Shin-Nitetsu Sakai), Junichi Tazawa (Nippon Oil) and Kosuke Fukudome (Nihon Seimei), have been discovered by professional clubs while playing industrial baseball. Japan has won the World Baseball Classic twice since the tournament was created.