What was Compadre Stadium?

In the early 1980s, Chandler began courting the Milwaukee Brewers to come to Chandler for spring training.  At the time the Brewers trained in Sun City, but their stadium had been sold and they needed a new home.  Chandler leaders wanted to bring the team here because they saw neighboring cities  with teams – Phoenix had the Oakland A’s, Mesa the Chicago Cubs and California Angels, Scottsdale the San Francisco Giants, and Tempe the Seattle Mariners – and they wanted the economic benefits of having a Major League Baseball team in their own community.

Former Chandler mayor Jim Patterson, Dwight “Pat” Patterson, and several others worked to build the privately funded $1.6 million Compadre Stadium in 1985.  Located on the southwest corner of Ocotillo and Alma School Roads, the stadium became the spring training home of the Brewers one year later.  The 5,000 seat stadium was the first to offer grass seating beyond the outfield wall, a feature of all new spring training ballparks today.

The Brewers trained at Compadre for 12 seasons, leaving for Maryvale in 1998.  The stadium has not been used for baseball since then, and in April 2014 plans were put forward to demolish the stadium to build houses.