by: Brandon Loomis The Republic | azcentral.com

By day, the lights are about the least obvious visual attractions at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. But what else around the Cactus League shouts louder about ba…seball’s hopeless devotion to the past?

The rusty sandstone buttes of Papago Park loom large beyond the outfield, and a perfectly groomed lawn is center stage on game days. The posts that raise the lights 100 feet above the playing field have shined down on all of this and much more.

The park, built in 1964 and updated twice since, is the oldest active home to Arizona’s spring-training circuit, now that Tucson’s Hi Corbett Field is no longer in the mix. But as anyone walking the concourse behind the stands along the third-base line may have read in a concrete inscription added a decade ago, it’s those 10 tall, steel cylinders that really speak to the good old days.

Willie Mays watched his drive float past them when he hit the park’s first home run. But even that wasn’t the beginning.
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