Chicago Cubs v Philadelphia Phillies, April 4, 1992Veterans Stadium, Sec 548 Row 7
I had criteria for a good baseball atmosphere. All 3 of the critera are ideal, but I would settle for 2 of the 3. A game must 1) be played on grass, 2) must be played in the day and 3) the park must be sold out.
It was a 2 for 3 day. The Phils for years held opening day at night. Sacrilege to the purist. The place was a dump, the teams sucked and there was little marketing efforts to draw people back to the stadium. Maybe an Opening Day held in the daytime would convince enough people to take a full or half day off work on a Tuesday. It worked for us.
You had the Cubs and Greg Maddux taking on the Phil's ace, Terry Mulholland. You have an unknown Sammy Sosa, a veteran Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace and Andre Dawson in the lineup for the Cubbies.
The "gimmick" of daytime opening day baseball seemed to have worked as over 60,000 were in attendance on this cloudy afternoon with temps in the low 60s. Plus, the Fightins finally let go of their 1970's uniforms a decade too late and stepped into modern times with new retro unis.
Future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux had trouble with his control early on. He hit the first batter he faced, and threw a wild pitch to advance Lenny Dykstra when he faced his 2nd batter of the game. The Phils John Kruk singled to left scoring Dykstra for the game's 1st run.
The Phils scored 2 more in the 3rd off Dave Hollins and another Kruk RBI.
The Cubs came out strong in the 4th with a Mark Grace home run to deep right with Dawson on base. In the 5th the Cubs put 2 more on the electronic scoreboard when Maddux singled followed by a Dawson single, a Sosa RBI double and a Sandberg sac fly.
Cubs went on to win the opener 4-3.
