A bill to help keep the Chicago Cubs’ spring-training operations in Mesa ran into strong headwinds Friday even before it was introduced in the Arizona Legislature.

Derrick Hall, president of the Arizona Diamondbacks, told The Arizona Republic that Cactus League teams are united in opposing the legislation, which would raise car-rental taxes and impose a surcharge on spring-training tickets to help pay for a new Cubs stadium and practice facility in Mesa.

House Majority Leader John McComish, R-Ahwatukee Foothills, plans to introduce the bill on Monday.

“It’s really a catch-22 because we would love for the Cubs to stay – just not at the expense of our fans,” Hall said. “The other 13 teams in the Cactus League feel the same way.”

Hall said the main objection is to the ticket surcharge because that would come directly out of fans’ pockets.

Although the bill’s specifics are still being worked out, McComish said Friday he had to rush it into the legislative hopper to meet a filing deadline.

The bill seeks to raise $59 million over 20 years to pay off bonds that would be issued by the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority to build the Cubs complex.

The sports authority was created in 2000, when voters approved Proposition 302 to raise money for an Arizona Cardinals stadium and for Cactus League facilities, with West Valley cities getting the bulk of the funding so far. The sports authority levies a 1 percent bed tax and a 17.75 percent car-rental tax.

With the authority’s initial funds now tapped, Mesa and the Cactus League say they need the legislation to keep the Cubs from bolting to Florida. The authority’s $59 million would cover 70 percent of the public cost for the new facilities, which has been capped at $84 million. Mesa would contribute the remaining $25 million, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said.

Investment by private parties, including the Cubs, would push the total cost of the baseball complex to about $119 million.

For several months, Mesa has said that keeping the Cubs is essential to the overall health of the Cactus League. On Friday, the city released a new report by economists Alan Maguire and Elliot Pollack, who estimated that if the Cubs were to leave Arizona and be replaced by an “average” Major League Baseball team, the state would lose $138 million a year in economic activity, nearly 1,600 jobs and almost $51 million in wages.

Passing McComish’s bill is one of several milestones that must be reached under an agreement signed last week by Mesa and the Cubs.

Smith defended the Cubs legislation in a news briefing Friday after Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago White Sox, expressed opposition to the plan.

“We’re not affecting the current revenue streams” for other Cactus League teams, Smith said. He leveled a broadside at Reinsdorf, whose team practiced for years in Tucson Electric Park before leaving last year to join the Los Angeles Dodgers in a new sports authority-funded complex in the Valley.

“Is this the same Jerry Reinsdorf that skipped out on Pima County taxpayers who had spent tens of millions of dollars to provide him with a taxpayer-funded stadium, to come to Glendale, where Maricopa County taxpayers provided him a Taj Mahal spring-training facility?” Smith said.

He said Reinsdorf’s White Sox enjoy a publicly funded stadium in Chicago and that Reinsdorf last year looked into buying the Phoenix Coyotes, who play in Glendale’s publicly funded hockey arena. “The irony is delicious,” Smith said.

McComish said opponents need to do more than just say no. “I know what you don’t want to do, but give me some other ideas on how to raise the money,” he said.

Hall said Friday he’s not sure what those ideas would be. But he said the D-Backs took pains to seek private funding for their new spring-training complex on the Salt River Reservation.

McComish said he’s backing the Cubs because the team is good for Arizona’s economy, pointing out that the Cubs fill all of the other ballparks as well as Mesa’s Hohokam Stadium. While the average Cactus League game drew 6,418 fans in 2009, the average Cubs home game drew 10,690. “The Cubs are the linchpin of the Cactus League,” McComish said.

According to Smith Travel Research, a tourism-industry authority, Maricopa County has about 60,000 hotel rooms. Only 7,000 of those rooms are west of the Black Canyon corridor along Interstate 17, with about 35,000 east of Central Avenue.

Fees collected at the 14,000 rooms in Scottsdale, the 5,000 near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, the 10,000 in Mesa and Chandler, the 5,500 in Tempe, the 8,000 in central Phoenix and the 7,700 along Interstate 17 have been used to build largely West Valley facilities, including Goodyear Ballpark for the Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds and Camelback Ranch for the Dodgers and White Sox.

Cactus League President Robert Brinton said he is working to build a regional consensus. “Legislation seldom drops in the form that it finishes,” he said.