Week 40: Spring Training in Chandler

Despite the fact that Chandler is not currently home to any baseball Spring Training facilities, the city actually has a long history of hosting the annual event.

The unofficial start of Arizona’s Cactus League was 1947, when the Cleveland Indians and the then-New York Giants set up spring headquarters in our state. While teams had trained off and on in Arizona for decades prior to that, the arrival of the Indians and the Giants represented the beginning of something new and permanent – the Cactus League. Soon, cities across Arizona were competing to lure teams of all levels for spring training.

In 1959, Chandler joined the fray, convincing the AAA level Denver Bears to make the city their spring headquarters. The Bears, who were unaffiliated with a major league club that season, trained at Wilfred G. Austin Field at Chandler High School, and played a competitive slate of games against the Fort Worth Cats and San Antonio Missions, both of whom trained in Mesa.

That season was such a success that Chandler built Arrowhead Meadows Park on Erie Street to attract more professional baseball teams to the city. Additionally, local residents founded the Chandler Sunbirds, a sports booster club, to help run the stadium and host teams. The plan worked. The AAA Oklahoma City 89ers established Chandler as their spring training home. The team trained at Arrowhead Meadows, and headquartered in the Aloha Motel on Arizona Avenue.

The 1963 spring season was one of the biggest Chandler had yet seen, as Oklahoma City hosted 10 spring games at Arrowhead Meadows, including a much anticipated showdown with their parent club, the Houston Colt 45s, who trained in nearby Apache Junction. The prior year, over 800 fans descended on Arrowhead Meadows to watch as the 89ers were shutout by the parent Colt 45s 4-0. The 1963 showdown featured an 89ers lineup with a lot of power, against a Colt 45s team which started a young second baseman by the name of Joe Morgan. The Sunbirds promoted the game and sold tickets for $1 apiece. Exact attendance figures aren’t known, but the Sunbirds boasted of a large turnout to see the farm team dismantle the major league club by a score of 8-2. Their successful spring training in Chandler boosted the 89ers to a regular season league championship that year.

Spring training 1964 seemed like it would be even bigger and better, as the major league Colt 45s explored moving to Chandler. Unfortunately, negotiations between Chandler, the Sunbirds, and the Houston Colt 45s broke down. In an opinion column in the March 12, 1964, edition of the Chandler Arizonan, Pete Carrillo lamented the fact that there would be no spring training baseball in Chandler that year, or in the foreseeable future. He cited several upgrades that Arrowhead Meadows Park needed in order to keep professional baseball clubs interested in Chandler, including a suitable irrigation system for the fields, enclosure of the ballpark, expanded seating to accommodate 5,000 fans, larger locker rooms, and better accessibility and more parking for fans.

It would be more than 20 years before Chandler saw such a facility. In 1986, behind the efforts of former Chandler mayor Jim Patterson and the Chandler Compadres, Compadre Stadium was opened at the corner of Ocotillo and Alma School Roads. Compadre Stadium boasted modern clubhouses, seating for 5,000, and additional seating on an outfield grassy berm – a popular feature now standard in Cactus League ballparks. The Stadium hosted the Milwaukee Brewers from 1986 until 1997, when the team moved to their current spring training home in Maryvale. The stadium went unused for many years until its demolition earlier this year.