"Grab Some Pine, Meat!" Traditional Cache
Trizumi: It's time to send this cache to the locker room! The end of life date on the label has passed and so has an era. While this sounds like the cache is retiring, just like Barry Bonds, I'm sure it will be back next season.
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Black_Cat and myself where heading to the nearby interesting Lonesone Bush cache when we came across this amazing pink structure towering out in what we thought was the middle of nowhere. It turned out to be a little slice of baseball history. So we both agreed it deserved a cache.
This cache has been placed near the old San Francisco Giants’ spring training Resort, Francisco Grande. "Francisco" was taken from the San "Francisco" Giants and "Grande" was taken from Casa "Grande"; thus the name "Francisco Grande." While Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal were honing their Hall of Fame skills, the Resort became an exclusive and intimate desert hideaway for Hollywood elites. Legends such as John Wayne, Dale Robertson, Pat Boone, and Gale Gordon frequented the Francisco Grande.
San Francisco Giants owner Horace Stoneham developed this property in 1959 as a spring training camp for his baseball team. Just north of where the cache is hidden use to stand the main ball park where an over capacity crowd attended the first exhibition game in 1961. After the Giants were moved to Scottsdale, the California Angels used the facility from 1982 until 1984. The next two years saw the transformation of the baseball fields into football fields, which were used as the training camp headquarters for the USFL's Arizona Wranglers and the Denver Gold.
There are several unique architectural facts concerning the resort. The famous swimming pool is in the shape of a baseball bat, and the hot tub is shaped like a baseball. The parking area in front of the hotel where Willie Mays parked his pink Cadillac with "Say Hey" plates was originally designed like a baseball diamond and the flower beds were constructed to resemble bats and balls. The overhang on the north side of the tower was built to resemble the brim of a baseball cap. The stairwells on the south side of the building were built to resemble those in a stadium at the time of construction.
The coach's observation tower; a round two story structure which was used by coaches and members of the press to view the action of players during practice is still visible to the north. With your imagination, you can see the four baseball diamonds with some of the sport's best known players (then and now) as they practiced in their "Field of Dreams".
Be sure to bring your own ink and quill.
Originally located at N 32° 52.819 W 111° 50.609
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures