Al Campanis was a scout for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1950s and 1960s. He said the hair on his arms only stood up twice in his life. Once when he saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the other time when he witnessed Sandy Koufax throw a fastball.
Years later, baseball pundits called Koufax “The Left Arm of God,” and if God played baseball, God would be standing on the mound. Maybe as a southpaw with a cheek full of chewing tobacco who will brush a guy back with a slider, high and inside, if he crowds the plate.
Baseball just makes sense to some people in a way other things don’t. Lots of things do this. For instance, music does this. So does going to church. But you can’t play baseball in church, even though that’s what some people call the game.
On the field there is music. Music in the way a curveball drops six inches and hits the catcher’s mitt. Music when a player steals third and dives headfirst into the bag. Music when a Louisville Slugger hits a bloop single into the outfield or gives the ball a boarding pass to Taiwan. Music when cleats sprint on the outfield grass and the crunch they make on the dirt of the warning track. Music when a 96 mph beanball buries itself into the hip of the designated hitter. Music when the 108 double stitches on the Rawlings hiss as it cuts through the hot air in August. The boo of the crowd after a bad call. The roar of it after a home run.
All of it sings.
But even with the sound turned off you can still hear it.
In baseball, your eyes have ears too.
Some of us talk about the sport the way we used to listen to the old timers talk about it when we were kids. Stories that filled our stomachs then the same way a hot dog and a few cold beers does now.
Sometimes we talk about the local lore of The Diamond. Maybe it’s sitting in a garage off Semmes Avenue with the radio on, reminiscing about how Steve Shields pitched the first game at The Diamond and the last game at Parker Field. How Parker Field replaced Mooers Field in 1954, which had originally been built as part of the city fairgrounds in the ’30s.
Tales told from before they were called the Richmond Braves, when they were the Richmond Virginians, a hapless farm club for the New York Yankees during the mid-’50s and mid-’60s. The same field that saw exhibition games littered with the spike imprints of DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Mantle, and Luke Appling.
How the Virginians uprooted and moved to Ohio, changing their name to the Toledo Mud Hens, leaving Richmond without a team until the birth of the Braves in 1965. Forty-three years later, the ball club bid the city adieu, making room for the San Francisco Giants’ Double-A affiliate, the Flying Squirrels, to gather leaves and build its nest in the stadium in 2010.
If you squint your eyes at The Diamond just before sunset you can almost see the first Richmond Braves team who called the field its home. Players like Duane Ward and Albert Hall, Marty Clary and Tony Brizzolara. Maybe the hair on their arms stood up the first time they saw The Diamond rising above the Boulevard like a concrete juggernaut, long before the name of the road included Arthur Ashe. Maybe that first team had never seen the ceiling inside of the Sistine Chapel.
To some people baseball is just a game. A song is just a song. People are just people.
And they’re right. But it doesn’t matter.
It didn’t matter to the sold-out crowd in attendance who came to see the final game at The Diamond between the Richmond Flying Squirrels and the Hartford Yard Goats on September 14th. It didn’t matter the previous two sold-out nights either. The first three-night sellout in franchise history.
Whether it was by casual interest or a lifelong dedication, baseball had somehow found its way into the hearts and minds of each of the 9,810 people in attendance on Sunday. They were there to watch The Diamond as it tipped its hat and said Thanks for the memories during its curtain call to a city which has loved it so.
The fireworks began on Opening Day in April when Major League Baseball Hall of Famer and former Richmond Brave John Smoltz threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Giveaway nights followed, featuring a “Diamond” ring, a palm-of-your-hand stadium replica, a ring-neck t-shirt, and a Chipper Jones bobblehead that had hundreds of people waiting in lines stretching down the sidewalk.
Steve Shields was there to throw out the first pitch one game, and so was reliever Peter Moylan. Players like former Atlanta Braves star David Justice and 1992 NLCS hero Francisco Cabrera were on hand to sign autographs, along with former Richmond Braves players like Gary Eave, Rusty Richards, Eddie Mathews, and Tommy Greene.
The team gave out little bags of dirt from the infield to everyone in attendance on the 14th and even made a bobblehead of the Flying Squirrels’ #1 Fan, Ray Edwards, for the first 2,000 people who walked through the gates. A lifelong fan of the San Francisco Giants, Edwards has only missed 13 home games since 2010. By Sunday, stadium workers were handing out all the leftovers from giveaway nights they had throughout the season like it was a closing soup kitchen. People were happy everywhere you looked.
From the middle of center field, looking at the enormous crowd in the stands, the last thing you would think is that these were citizens of a country taking a long look down into the abyss. Trumpers and Democrats and people caught in the middle held an unspoken truce for a few hours during something some people think is just a game. And they’re right.
But it doesn’t matter. A song is a song. People are people.
Sitting on the bench in the dugout before the final game, Dennis Pelfrey thought back to 2021, when he first arrived in Richmond. He had heard about the nostalgia of The Diamond, but he wasn’t sure if it was real. Driving in before spring training, he said, the calm before the storm gave him goosebumps. From his first day in Richmond, it felt like home.
Pelfrey crossed his leg over his knee, sunflower seed shells scattered across the dugout floor. For a moment I caught the reflection of the infield in the red, mirrored lenses of his sunglasses.
At four years, he has been the longest-tenured manager in the Flying Squirrels’ 15-year history. He led the team to back-to-back playoff appearances, came within throwing distance of the franchise wins record, and still talks about The Diamond as if it raised him. “I love it here. It’s home to me,” he said, even with his wife and son back in Texas. “If I have to be away from my family, this is the place I want to be.”
He knows the new ballpark will carry high expectations. Matching what The Diamond gave Richmond over forty years is a tall order. Still, he hopes to be there to help shape the next chapter, one that fans will talk about with the same affection years from now.
Up in the press box between sections 207 and 211, Trey Wilson has spent as many hours at The Diamond as anyone. As the voice of the Flying Squirrels for the past seven years, he estimates he’s logged more time in that building than at his own home. On Saturday night, with two outs in the ninth, he leaned out the broadcast window to feel the crowd one last time before calling the final strike. “This place was special,” he said. “We squeezed everything we could out of this building, but it’s time to move on.”
For Wilson, the memories that rise to the surface aren’t just big games, the All-Star festivities in 2019, clinching a division title, or sharing the booth with players he grew up watching, but also the smaller ones. Long overnight work sessions in the office. Sitting with his family for an inning or two when they visited. Conversations in the dugout, or around Parney’s Pub. The rhythm of everyday life inside a ballpark that doubled as a second home.
Looking ahead, Wilson talks about CarMax Park not as a replacement, but as a transformation. “I don’t think most Richmonders fully understand how different the experience is going to be,” he said. The new amenities will change the fan experience from the moment the ticket scans until the lights go out.
If you live in the City of Richmond you have been affected directly or indirectly by The Diamond. Maybe you can hear a fireworks display after a game from your front porch in The Fan. Maybe you’ve seen the stadium towering above everything in the area like a concrete fortress. Maybe you used to go to games with your dad and tried to get players to sign your Little Caesar’s giveaway ball. Maybe your Little League coach took the team there after the last game of the season. Maybe it’s the line of backed up traffic trying to get into the parking lot. Maybe you remember the colossal Native American sculpture “Connecticut” by the artist Paul Di Pasquale that overlooked the Greyhound Station and rest of the Boulevard. Maybe you went there only to drink beer with your college friends and didn’t care about the game. Maybe you scan people’s tickets or sell foam fingers and miniature bats in the Squirrel’s Nest team store. Maybe it’s something I didn’t mention at all.
It’ll be strange at first to watch baseball in Richmond at another stadium. Different like moving into a new home or selling a car you’ve had since high school. Something will tighten in your throat after it’s all over. The Diamond has been a friend or a shadow to us here and as we walk on we’ll know where we are and where we’ve been and remember who and what helped get us there.
Baseball is a game.
A song is a song.
People are people.
But it doesn’t matter.
Read more Richmond baseball history HERE.
Photos by Buffy Ripley
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