On Sunday afternoon, the last baseball game will be held at The Diamond after 40 years of service to a city and region and two baseball teams in what was, when it opened, “a major league park in a minor league town.” Between opening night in 1985 and the last game on Sunday is a span of 14,761 days.
Through all the debates over the decades about a new ballpark in Shockoe or on the Boulevard (a topic for another day), The Diamond has been a beacon and a jewel for baseball lovers, fans of a night outdoors, exhausting your kids, eating hot dogs, Cracker Jacks or cotton candy, and/or just enjoying the national pastime without spending a fortune to do it.
We all have so many great memories of and at The Diamond, and today we put aside the many years (and decades) of stadium debates, the loss of the Braves, the arrival of the Squirrels, and talk of next year for a look back at what was happening on the day of and the weeks surrounding April 17, 1985 when the stadium first opened. People were buzzing and the excitement more than offset the shortcomings of the not quite completed facility on opening night. I was one of many who was lucky enough to have been at the last game at Parker Field in the Fall of 1984 and also in the stands for The Diamond’s opening night a little more than seven months later. (FYI, this Sunday’s final game is sold out, but there are still tickets if you want to see a game tonight, Friday, or Saturday to say farewell.)
- On opening night in April 1985, there were 12,435 in the stands, including baseball’s all-time home run king Hank Aaron, who was at the time the head of the Atlanta Braves’ farm teams.
- The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Connie Joyce, the daughter of Dr. William Parker, a Richmond doctor and athletics leader for which Parker Field was named when it opened in 1954.
- The National Anthem was sung by the Tobaccoland Chorus (now known as The Virginians).
- The day before the opening, crews were installing the netting behind home plate to protect fans and the stadium, but the baseline netting was not in place on opening day.
- The day before the opener, the stadium still had not received its Certificate of Occupancy (insert joke about the city here) but they opened anyway a day later.
- The morning of the first game, crews were still installing armrests on the seats in the lower section.
- The stadium’s restaurant (where the Squirrels Nest store is today) was not close to ready, and the skyboxes were completed but had not been furnished or decorated.
- The concession stands were not ready either, and temporary stands were set up on the concourses serving canned drinks and hot dogs from temporary grills.
- The new field at the Diamond saw a deeper outfield with the power alleys moved back to 385 feet compared to 355 feet in Parker Field.
- The first home run at the Diamond was not hit that night but a week later on April 22, 1985 by Billy Bean of the Tidewater Tides (NY Mets’ AAA club) and later of Moneyball movie fame with the Oakland Athletics.
- On opening night, the Braves lost the game to the Syracuse Sky Chiefs 2-1 that saw 10 hits and five errors in the game on a chilly spring evening.
And no one cared.
It was a new stadium after 30 years of Parker Field which was beyond antiquated but, like the Diamond, also served as a field of dreams and memories. The new stadium was a model of regional cooperation with Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield contributing $4 million and the private sector, led by Bobby Ukrop, to provide an additional $4 million to get the Diamond built — and fast. Ukrop told the Times-Dispatch the week of the opener that the project came together “because we were on such a fast track we didn’t have time to quibble over small things. Whatever we did, it had to be done right then. We didn’t have time to argue.”
Everyone just wanted to be there. One interview was with a young man who purposely chose the seat the farthest from home plate at the top of Section 201 in right field. “I like it up high,” Tony Price said. “You get a good view of the game. And you get an even better view of the city.”
And to get some perspective of what was happening in the world in April 1985:
- A general admission ticket to opening night at The Diamond cost $3.
- A ticket to the Yankees opening day v. The Boston Red Sox cost $8.
- The stock market closed on April 17th at 1,269 (it’s currently at 45,490.)
- The price of gold was $303.10 (today it’s at $3,673).
- A Big Mac value meal (including fries and a drink) cost about $2.59 (no clue what it is today).
- A brand new Porsche 944 cost $21,999; a Porsche 911 Carrera ranged from $32,500 to $37,000.
- The average movie ticket cost $3.55.
- A postage stamp cost 22 cents.
- A gallon of gas cost $1.21.
- A gallon of milk was $1.09.
- Bottled water was almost unheard of then and only for snooty people.
- A Ukrop’s newspaper ad looked like this:
- Ronald Reagan was the President and including him, there were a total of eight Presidents over the life span of the Diamond (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump 2).
- The San Francisco 49ers were the Super Bowl XIX champions having beaten the Miami Dolphins 38-16 in January. The Detroit Tigers were reigning World Series champions having beaten San Diego the previous Fall and the Boston Celtics held the NBA Championship after beating the L.A. Lakers the previous Summer.
- The top TV shows in 1985 included The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Murder She Wrote, and Cheers, and it also saw the introduction that year of MacGyver.
- The top baby name in 1985 for boys was Michael, followed by Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, and Daniel. Jessica was the top for girls, followed by Ashley, Jennifer, Amanda, and Sarah.
- The number one song on the pop charts that week was “We Are the World” by USA for Africa, and the #1 song on the R&B charts was “Back In Stride” by Maze featuring Frankie Beverly.
- The top movies in April 1985 were Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment with Steve Gutenburg, followed by Mask with Cher and Eric Stoltz, and The Breakfast Club featuring the Brat Pack.
- Two weeks before The Diamond opened, Villanova had pulled off one of the all-time great sports upsets by beating Georgetown to win the NCAA Tournament.
- A week after The Diamond’s first game, Coca-Cola announced changes to their recipe and released New Coke, which was one of the worst brand disasters in history.
- That same week after the opener, Eric Clapton played the Richmond Coliseum (which you can still miraculously hear on YouTube).
- The population of Virginia in 1985 was about 5.7 million (about 8.89 million today).
- The city’s population was roughly 210,000 in the mid-80’s before falling to about 197,000 in the late 1990’s and rebounding to 233,000+ today.
- Chesterfield’s population was about 166,00 in 1985 (about 390,000 today) while Henrico was about 198,000 in 1985 (about 339,000 today).
- Tolls on the Downtown Expressway and Powhite Parkway were 25 cents for cars (today it is $1 or $0.90 if you use Smart Tag).
— —
The Times-Dispatch ran an editorial in April 1985 that prophetically said, “The Diamond should be Richmond baseball fans’ best friend well into the 21st Century.”
After 40 great years, our ballpark has been a steady and reliable companion (albeit with some drama over maintenance issues and its replacement), and it has always been there when we needed an outlet, distraction or just an evening to enjoy baseball and/or being with friends and family. Since 1985, The Diamond has been a true gem in our community and generated so many winning moments, reasons to gather, good times, and celebrations that it is impossible to tally them all, but we can and should remember them. We can look to the future and a new stadium next year, but we will also miss this familiar monument, its iconic name, and always hold close the wonders and memories it has produced for so many of us.
Shine on.
Main photo The Diamond under construction in 1984, photo courtesy of The Valentine
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