1969 - 1993 Padres Spring Training

The final contract between the Padres and Yuma covered just two seasons, 1992 and 1993. After the 1993 spring training season, the Padres announced they would move to the newly built Peoria Sports Complex, which they would share with the Seattle Mariners, making it the first two-team spring training facility in MLB history.

 

Tony Gwynn said he would miss playing in Yuma because after more than a decade, he had finally found a good fishing spot nearby. For longtime Yuma residents who had grown up watching Padres players practice at Desert Sun, the departure landed hard.

 

But Yuma endured, as it always has. The Caballeros de Yuma stayed true to their mission and committed to bringing community minded events to town. The community that once rolled out the welcome mat for a major league baseball team now welcomes dozens of hot air balloons to their annual festival, welcomes hundreds of runners to their annual marathon/half marathon/10K, and welcomes nearly a thousand classic cars to their signature event Midnight at the Oasis.

 

Desert Sun Stadium eventually found new life as the Ray Kroc Baseball Complex, honoring the late Padres owner who had been such a part of the team’s identity during the Yuma Spring Training years. Although the Ray Kroc Baseball Complex no longer hosts MLB Spring Training, it is home to many community events throughout the year.

 

The spring training era is gone, but not forgotten. For anyone who ever caught an autograph outside that ballpark, watched Tony Gwynn work the batting cage, or simply drove across the desert on a February morning for a cold beer and a baseball game in the sunshine, Yuma’s Padres years remain one of the Southwest’s great community baseball stories