“We barnstormed through the entire state of Iowa, it seemed,” said former Dragons broadcaster Mike Vander Woude.
Even though players and coaches had been following the stadium’s progress on a website, they had little idea what to expect.
Marc Katz around that time had written in the Dayton Daily News that “Fifth Third Field was about three-fifths finished.” That may have been optimistic.
“We were sitting on folding chairs, and none of this was here,” said Freddie Benavides, the first Dragons manager, gesturing last week to the benches and bat racks in the dugout along the third-base line.
But even with a crane propping up the scoreboard and doors yet to be installed on the luxury suites, the park opened for business, and to rave reviews.
“It was what everybody had been working toward for the past couple of years,” Vander Woude said. “You could feel the excitement with the crowd gathering on the plaza.
“The ‘wow’ factor for both teams seeing the field for the first time was incredible, just how nice it was.”
Sellout crowd No. 1 saw the Dragons beat the Cedar Rapids Kernels, 4-3. Brian Seever, a Kernel whose career would be over by 2002, was the first batter in the first Dayton professional game since the Dayton Indians ended a four-year run in the Central League in 1951. Jim Manias, who would go 6-6 that year with a 3.22 earned-run average, threw the first pitch.
Kearns, who hit 27 home runs in 2000 en route to a long, now-sputtering major-league career, scored the first run and teammate Casey Bookout, entering what would be the second and final season of his two-year career, hit the first homer.
Future major-league pitcher John Lackey, who two years later would become the youngest to win a World Series Game 7 as a member of the California Angels, suffered the loss.
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