Hartford Yard Goats Open Dunkin' Donuts Park After Long Wait

Baseball returned "at last to Hartford" last night with the Double-A Eastern League Hartford Yard Goats hosting their first game at the new $71M Dunkin' Donuts Park, where "some 6,850 filled the stands and the concourses." After the 7-2 loss to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Yard Goats manager Jerry Weinstein said, "The whole spectacle, first game in the new ballpark, was great. The fans were just great, the ceremony was fabulous" (HARTFORD COURANT, 4/14). Scores of fans "donned Yard Goats attire, evidence of marketing by the team to build a brand over a year" when the club was "forced to play all their games on the road." Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said that the "city will now turn to the land" around the ballpark (HARTFORD COURANT, 4/14).

There was a "small group of protesters outside the stadium, touring handmade signs railing against the money spent on building Dunkin' Donuts Park" (HARTFORD COURANT, 4/14).