YUMA , Ariz. — Driving into Arizona toward Padres camp, I felt a pull to do a little exploring.
I exited soon after crossing the Colorado River and went into Yuma, where the Padres staged spring training for 25 years before the club adopted Peoria in northwest Phoenix as its training site in 1994.
I was assured of finding authentic Mexican food in Yuma, guaranteeing my side trip’s success.
But would I find a vestigial Padres vibe in the dusty place where San Diego’s original big league club trained in 1969?
Where the Cactus League life unfolded at an untroubled pace under a thick tower marked YUMA?
Yuma’s water tower is visible from Desert Sun Stadium, former spring training home of the San Diego Padres. (Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune)
And where a team that featured 23-year-old Tony Gwynn embarked on a journey that didn’t end until Game 5 of the 1984 World Series?
Desert Sun Stadium wasn’t feeling nostalgic about my arrival.
As I stood on the right-field warning track, instead of hearing the echoes of San Diegans cheering Padres players and ballpark vendors hawking food and drink, I heard a rattle overhead.
Gusts buffeted the weathered metal scoreboard, above a chain-link outfield fence.
As a stray cat sized me up from the warning track, I began a long grassy walk toward where home plate no longer was.
A record crowd of 5,866 watches LaMarr Hoyt and the San Diego Padres win their first Cactus League game of the season on March 16, 1985 in Yuma, Ariz. (Thane McIntosh/San Diego Union-Tribune)
For many of the 25 Padres clubs that trained on these grounds before heading west to Mission Valley, opening day signaled a long march toward oblivion.
Yet a handful of these Padres players evolved into all-time greats.
Was there ever a better singles hitter than Gwynn?
A more entertaining shortstop than Ozzie Smith?
Did any baseball Hall of Famer eclipse Dave Winfield as a three-sport athlete?
Then and in today’s era, you didn’t find many second basemen with more game than Roberto Alomar, who came to Yuma by way of Puerto Rico.
Belying the franchise’s deep struggles in a stacked National League West and an era that had no wild-card safety net, each of those four Hall of Famers began his career with the Padres.
Fans at Desert Sun Stadium saw Randy Jones, a lefty pitcher drafted in the eighth round out of Chapman University, make Don Zimmer’s Padres club out of spring camp in 1973. The Cactus League of three years later sent Jones toward a season of 25 complete games and the Cy Young award.
But as my stroll approached the two worn-out dugouts and a chain-link backstop, nothing from the Padres’ Yuma era came home to me.
No Padre there, was here.
I did hear the sound of a ball being struck, again and again, behind the third-base-line bleachers. These were hard-plastic balls, which a woman thumped across a pickleball court.
Desert Sun Stadium in Yuma, Ariz., was spring training home of the Padres before they moved east to Peoria. (Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune)
And it turned out, Desert Sun’s field is now a soccer field. There’s no infield dirt on it, much less a mound. Next month, hundreds of classic cars will roll across its grass as part of Midnight at the Oasis, a popular annual event.
I had one more stop to make.
“The San Diego Union-Tribune?” exclaimed a greeter at Lutes Casino Bar & Grill, a former Padres haunt, after we met. “We’d get that newspaper here back then. They had a box out front.”
Bob Lutes, 90, has owned Lutes for 60-plus years, and serves also as a greeter, quipster and raconteur.
Dozens of photographs, posters and signs adorn the walls at Lutes. Babe Ruth. Marilyn Monroe. John Wayne. Herman Munster.
Might there be any Padres photos?
Lutes walked to a back wall. He pointed out the only Padres item in the place. The photo shows Graig Nettles and Goose Gossage, mainstays of the ‘84 team, sipping beers during a visit.
“Graig Nettles was my favorite because he came here often,” Bob said. “Goose was here a few times. Steve Garvey played pool here. I met Ray Kroc, too — I think.”
“The town catered to the Padres,” he adds. “We got them free golf. I’d give them free beer and food. We loved them.”
Five years after the Padres left Yuma, the Arizona Diamondbacks entered the big leagues.
Longtime Yuma resident Josh Aguilar, 47, and many other locals now lean toward the home-state Snakes, but Aguilar said he prefers the Padres to every other baseball team due to his warm memories of attending the club’s Cactus League games as a boy.
“The Padres were my first love,” he said.
Five bucks got him a hot dog and a ticket into the ballpark every February and March. Josh and his friends brought baseball cards for players to sign. Among their biggest victories, at least initially, was getting Oakland A’s sluggers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire to sign.
Later, when some of the steroid era’s secrets were spilled, the Bash Brothers’ autographs went from famous to infamous.
No such worry for Augilar’s favorite keepsake from Yuma’s Cactus League days: a baseball signed by Gwynn.
“Gwynn was legit,” Josh said. “He never got into any scandal.”
Josh Aguilar
Josh Aguilar of Yuma shows off his autographed Tony Gwynn baseball. (Josh Aguilar)
Yuma’s leaders, having struck out in attempts in the 1950s to lure the Baltimore Orioles and other teams to the desert, embraced the Padres as their own after the baseball club chose Yuma over Borrego Springs for its training site.
A “Welcome Home San Diego Padres” banner was strung across Fourth Avenue throughout spring training.
When the Padres said goodbye in 1993, instead of see you next year, it felt to Aguilar like “a staple” had pierced his heart.
Yuma comes off as resilient, though. The motto of Caballeros de Yuma, a local business group formed in 1962, is “always looking forward.” For many visiting Padres fans, seat cushions bearing the Caballeros’ logo became standard issue.
Today, Aguilar works in Yuma’s bustling hotel market. And though thousands of Padres fans no longer visit Yuma every February and March, thousands of snowbirds still come here. They spice up the economy and, alas, the roadways.
“Get your head out of your apps,” implores an illuminated road sign, courtesy of Yuma’s police.
As for the Mexican food, it’s undeniably good.
Both to and from Peoria, you can hang a star on the eats at Tacos Mi Rancho.