Hon. Ron Travers

While we think of Peoria's current teams, the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, as the only clubs ever to train there, it was the Milwaukee Brewers who years earlier established minor league operations on the former Greenway Sports Complex with the help of an energetic public servant named Ron Travers.

Before he was mayor, Travers served on the Board of the Peoria Municipal Development Authority, which sought $1.5 million in bonds to build the fields that opened in April 1978. Ultimately the Brewers left the West Valley for Chandler, but Travers' efforts helped spark others to work toward construction of baseball's first-ever two-team spring training facility and relocation of the Mariners and Padres to their community.