‘Truly magical’: Wind Surge team reacts to first baseball game in new Wichita stadium
The bottom of the ninth inning, the Wind Surge at the plate, the home crowd at Riverfront Stadium roaring, the stage was set for a fairy tale ending to the first major league-affiliated baseball game in Wichita since 2007.
A controversial third-strike call with the winning run on base ended those hopes in what became a 3-2 loss for the Wind Surge to the Amarillo Sod Poodles on Tuesday night in their first game in their brand-new, $75 million stadium.
Watching a dejected home crowd of 7,908 fans trickle out of Riverfront Stadium wasn’t the ending that Wind Surge general manager Jared Forma envisioned when the day started, but a sense of pride stamped out any tinge of disappointment the loss brought to opening night in Wichita.
“Obviously a win would have been better, but tonight was still a win in my book,” Forma said. “It was truly magical to finally be able to open the stadium up and see all of the faces of this great community. It seemed like everybody was really enjoying themselves and had a great time.”
Not only was it the debut home game for a new franchise in a new stadium, but for the Wichita players it was the first time playing in front of home fans since 2019 after the coronavirus pandemic wiped out last season.
With all of that anticipation, Wind Surge manager Ramon Borrego said before the game that the excitement for Tuesday night’s game was similar to the kind he felt for his first at bat as a professional baseball player.
“My heart right now is beating 1,000 times faster than normal,” Borrego said. “It’s a big day for us, but it’s also a big day for the fans, it’s a big day for all of the people who work in the stadium. It’s not just about us, it’s big for everybody.”
Opening up a new ballpark for a new franchise was a unique experience for mostly everyone on the Wind Surge roster.
While players were not made available for postgame interviews, Wind Surge reliever Hector Lujan said before Tuesday’s game that the players were expecting to feed off that crowd energy.
Wichita’s debut crowd proved to be a raucous one: cheering at every crack of the bat from a Wind Surge player and giving reliever Yennier Cano a roaring ovation following an immaculate eighth inning when he struck out all three batters on the minimum nine pitches.
“The amount of energy in the clubhouse right now is through the roof,” Lujan said. “You can just tell from our clubhouse that it’s going to be special. It’s just surreal. I can tell that every single guy in there is excited to get on our home field and get rolling at home in front of our fans. I think every one of those guys is excited.”
After Amarillo, the Double-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, scored two runs in the top of the fourth inning, Wichita, the Double-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, answered with two runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning with RBI singles from Caleb Hamilton and Roy Morales.
A seventh-inning run by Amarillo proved to be the difference, as Wichita stranded a pair of runners in the eighth and ninth innings. The Wind Surge had runners at first and second with one out in the eighth, but Andrew Bechtold lined into an inning-ending double play. Down to its final out of the game, Jose Miranda and Gilberto Celestino helped Wichita rally in the ninth with back-to-back singles, but Jermaine Palacios was called out on strikes to end the game.
But on this night, the game was secondary for the Wind Surge personnel who had been with the franchise since the move from New Orleans. After going through the tragic death of owner Lou Schwechheimer, who died last July from complications of COVID-19, the prevailing thought on Tuesday was to remember how proud he would have been to watch his dream become a reality.
“It’s hard to put into words what this means because Lou was such a special person and had such a special heart and he truly fell in love with this community,” Forma said. “To be able to start to fulfill his dream is just so special. It’s been a rough last year since Lou passed. While tonight was sad in some respects, I know I shed a few tears, we know Lou is watching over us and it warms our heart to know that his dream is being fulfilled. It was a special night for his wife, Jane, and his daughter, Jenn, and that’s really what tonight was about. I believe that tonight we really made Lou proud.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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