The atmosphere was festive at Fifth Third Park on Tuesday as the USC Upstate Spartans and the Wofford Terriers opened the new downtown stadium with a cross-town rivalry baseball game.
All available tickets were sold out, and the stadium was full of fans of the two schools as well as community members who just wanted to get their first glimpse of the home of the new Hub City Spartanburgers Minor League Baseball team.
“The field is nice, the food’s good, and the beer’s cold – everybody’s happy,” said Kenny Harris. He was shopping with his grandson, Cash, in the Spartanburgers’ merchandise shop, where fans were lined up to buy green-and-blue hats, jerseys, baseballs, and various knickknacks.
Mandy Merck said she wouldn’t have missed the inaugural night of the new ballpark. “It really is amazing,” she said. “Coming into the stadium, I thought, ‘My gosh, we’re a big city!”
Merck feels a special connection to the park's opening. For more than two decades, she served as the lead events planner for the City of Spartanburg. Looking out at the field, she said, “It opens so many possibilities. I can see concerts out there. I can see festivals.”
Year-round scheduling for the stadium will be handled mostly by the Spartanburgers organization, but the City of Spartanburg, which owns the facility, will have access to plan events a certain number of times each year.
One community event is already on the calendar: Spartanburg’s annual Fourth of July fireworks show – “Red, White & Boom” – will be held at Fifth Third Park. The Spartanburgers will have a game earlier that day.
“Can you imagine how great that’s going to be? Baseball in Spartanburg during the afternoon and the ‘Boom’ event at the end of the evening?” said Deputy City Manager Mitch Kennedy.
City of Spartanburg officials are excited about the overall impact they think the stadium will have on the vitality of the downtown area. Tuesday’s game was a taste of what’s to come, said Kennedy.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” he said. “This is a nice introduction to an amazing venue.”
Kennedy sees the ballfield as a symbol of the progress Spartanburg has made in recent years. As a child, he lived in what was a rough neighborhood situated less than a mile from the stadium.
“Growing up here and spending a lot of time walking to downtown, to see this for my hometown is pretty special,” he said.
USC Upstate had been in discussion with the Spartanburgers about hosting a game to open Fifth Third Park, said Lenny Mathis, senior associate athletic director for external operations at USC Upstate.
“We talked about Clemson or USC, but then we thought, ‘What if it’s us against Wofford?’” he said. “It’s so cool to see two Spartanburg schools sell the stadium out on its opening night.”
Wofford won the contest 5-2.
This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Sellout crowd applauds Spartanburg's Fifth Third Park on opening night
