What it is
Tempe Diablo Stadium is the spring-training home of the Los Angeles Angels, a bowl of about 9,500 seats at the foot of the Twin Buttes on the west edge of Tempe, hard against Interstate 10. It opened in 1968, which makes it the oldest park in the Cactus League, and nothing has been built since to make it bigger, which makes it the smallest. The Angels have trained here every spring since 1993, and before them the Seattle Mariners for sixteen years, the Milwaukee Brewers for two, and, in 1969 and 1970, the Seattle Pilots, who left for Milwaukee so abruptly that the Brewers’ first spring here was played in Pilots uniforms with the names changed.
What the park has that the big new Cactus League complexes do not is the butte. One of the Twin Buttes, a volcanic hill the color of rust, rises just beyond the left-field foul line, and the whole stadium is arranged to look at it. A grass berm wraps the outfield; the stands are low and close; the concourse is short. A $20 million rebuild between 2002 and 2006 modernized the bones, and a 2021 agreement between the city and the team, which keeps the Angels here through at least 2035, is paying for a new clubhouse, offices, a team store and an outfield concourse in phases.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale Stadium is the Giants and the Giants sell out, and because the other Cactus League parks within reach are the new, large kind. Diablo is the opposite: a small park where a lawn seat is cheap, a child can chase a home-run ball on the berm, and the players sign along the rail at batting practice. Our spring training guide has it as the park to see once for its own sake, and the Cactus League calendar runs from late February through most of March.
The practical version
Twenty-two minutes from Old Town, no traffic: 101 south to the 60 west and I-10 to 48th Street, or down Rural Road through Tempe to Broadway. Paid lots at the park, street parking in the neighborhood east on game days. Gates open about two hours before first pitch. The game is three hours; a lunch at the Chuckbox on the way is the local pairing.
When to go
Spring training runs from the last week of February through the end of March, with the Angels at home roughly every other day. The first week is the cheapest and the most relaxed, with the biggest names playing a few innings; the weekends in mid-March are the sellouts, especially when the Dodgers or the Cubs visit. A weekday afternoon game in early March is the ideal: 1 PM first pitch, seventy-five degrees, the butte in the sun and the third-base side in shade by the fifth inning. Outside spring, the park hosts the Arizona high school baseball playoffs in May, which are free or nearly so and are real baseball under the same butte.
Where to sit
The lawn berm in the outfield is the answer for most people: cheapest ticket, blanket on the grass, the kids loose, and the left-field end gets the shade first. The third-base side of the grandstand is the shaded side as the afternoon goes on; the first-base side faces the butte and takes the sun. The front rows behind the dugouts are where the autograph seekers stand at batting practice. Concessions are the standard ballpark menu plus a few local stands; the park is small enough that the line is never far.
With kids
Diablo is the Cactus League park for a first game. It is small, so a six-year-old can see the field from anywhere; the berm lets them move; home runs land on the lawn and get chased; and the players, in March, sign. Bring sunscreen and a glove. Our Scottsdale with kids note has the full afternoon, including the lunch stop in Tempe before.
The neighborhood
The park sits in the industrial west end of Tempe, with the buttes behind it and I-10 in front, and there is nothing to walk to. Downtown Tempe and Mill Avenue are ten minutes east by car; the Chuckbox and the campus are on the way. The airport is five minutes west, which makes an Angels game the best use of a late-flight afternoon in March.
The story
Tempe built the stadium in 1968, when spring training was a loose arrangement of small towns and small parks, and the Diablos, a booster club that still runs the concessions and the parking, gave it the name and the muscle. The first tenant was an expansion team: the Seattle Pilots played their one spring here in 1969, came back in March 1970, and were sold and moved to Milwaukee a week before the season, so the Brewers’ first spring was played in Tempe in borrowed clothes. The Brewers stayed through 1972; the Seattle Mariners, another expansion team, arrived in 1977 and stayed sixteen springs.
The Angels came in 1993 from a split arrangement in Palm Springs and Mesa and have not left. By the turn of the century the park was showing its age against the new complexes in Peoria and Surprise, and the city and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which put up $12 million, spent $20 million between 2002 and 2006 rebuilding the grandstand, the fields and the minor-league complex; the park was rededicated on March 3, 2006. When the lease came up in 2021 the two sides agreed on something unusual for the Cactus League: to stay small. The deal runs through at least 2035 and pays for a new clubhouse, offices, a store and an outfield concourse, built in phases around the spring schedule, without adding seats.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale’s own spring-training history is the Cubs at Scottsdale Stadium from 1967 and the Giants there since 1984, and the Valley’s spring season is the one thing Scottsdale and Tempe have always shared: the same visitors, the same March, the same drive down Scottsdale Road. Diablo is the park a Scottsdale visitor adds when the Giants are sold out or when they want the version of spring training that the big parks have renovated away. The Diablos booster model, incidentally, is the one the Scottsdale Charros run on the other side of the river.
Getting there
Loop 101 south to US 60 west, then I-10 east to the 48th Street exit and north to Alameda Drive, about 22 minutes from Old Town with no traffic. The slower, prettier route is Scottsdale Road and Rural Road south through Tempe to Broadway Road, then west to 48th Street. Game-day parking is in the paid lots run by the Diablos; the neighborhood east of the park takes the overflow. There is no rail service to the stadium; our getting around note has the rideshare math, and a shared ride from Old Town for a day game is reasonable and spares you the lot.