I doubt any of you believed me that I went to Dayton a few weeks back ON BUSINESS, not just to pick up Mary. I don't blame you. It's been a few weeks with no Dayton update, I know this.(For the record, Mary is back-- safe and sound-- from Greece/Europe. And I couldn't be happier about that!)
Turns out the stories were pushed back a week (rightfully so, the Dragons are currently doing work in the Class A Midwest League playoffs), and I did the work a week in advance...so...yeah. The stories finally went live on MiLB.com today as part of (what could possibly be the last) Farm's Almanac of the year. The links:
Click here for my general take on the ballpark. As far as Class A facilities go, this is a really nice stadium-- even compared to a couple of Class A Advanced parks I saw. This was also my first trip to Dayton (who would have thought, 22-years-old and I'd never been to Akron OR Dayton even though I'm an Ohio native). I liked the city, though it's hard to tell where it stops and Cincinnati begins ('Touchdown Jesus' is in between though!).
Click here for my story on Dragons broadcaster Mike Vander Wood. Mike's a nice, very enthusiastic guy who has been with the team since 5/3 opened in 2000. I was glad to hear that. As much as I can't get down on young guys covering MiLB (ahem!), I do like to talk to a seasoned personality when chatting about teams, parks, players, etc. Mike was such a personality (my sympathies for the hideous pic of him; I didn't pick it, Mike!).
Click here to get a taste of 5/3 from Dragons player Logan Parker's perspective. Not surprising-- he loves the fan support. Totally surprising-- this ballpark has sold out every game since it opened in 2000. Let's see, call it 70 home games a season times eight seasons, about 8,500 seats at...say $15 a seat. FINAL ROUGH FIGURE: $71.4 million. Can that be right? That's like almost $9 million a year. And that's not even including hot dog sales! Wow. Bravo, Dayton!
As always, more pics can be found via the Flickr! links (both to the photos and --even better-- the map) on the left. I would suggest taking a peek. My map is all expansive and such! :-)
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