Broadcaster who called ballpark's first game returns 40 years later -- as visitor -- to call its last

The Diamond, Richmond's venerable Minor League ballpark, hosted its first game on April 17, 1985 and its final game this past Sunday. Two milestones, separated by four decades, and broadcaster Dan Lovallo was on the call for both. He was there to say hello and he was there to say goodbye.

Lovallo called the first game at The Diamond for the Richmond Braves, the Triple-A International League team that occupied the ballpark through 2008. For The Diamond's final game he was on the mic for the visiting Hartford Yard Goats, who took on the Richmond Flying Squirrels in a season and era-ending six-game series. The Flying Squirrels, Double-A Eastern League affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, played their first season at the Diamond in 2010 and will move to adjacent CarMax Park next year.

The Diamond, an outsized multi-level facility with an imposing concrete exterior, was a throwback to another era. Lovallo describes it as "long in the tooth." That doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye.

"It's going to be emotional for me as it is emotional for a lot of people in Richmond. That ballpark meant a lot to a lot of people," said Lovallo, speaking on MiLB.com's "The Show Before the Show" podcast prior to the final game. "I met a lot of fans over the years, when I was broadcasting Richmond Braves games particularly, whose life centered around that ballpark."

Lovallo began his broadcasting career in the mid-70s, doing radio news and sports in his home state of Connecticut. He wanted to break into the world of professional baseball, however, and eventually did so via a job with the Kinston Blue Jays that came with a bizarre caveat: In addition to calling the games, he had to drive the team bus.

"When I was in college, during my spare time, I actually drove a bus," said Lovallo. "Now, little did I know that the bus I was going to be driving for the Kinston Blue Jays was one that was manufactured back in the 1940s. ... Double clutch standard shift, and that's how I was able to get the job."

After two seasons of North Carolina-based broadcasting and bus driving, Lovallo moved on to the Richmond Braves. There, he formed a two-man booth alongside Bob Black, the longtime voice of University of Richmond football and basketball. During the 1984-85 offseason the Braves' former home of Parker Field was razed, and The Diamond was built in a mad rush to replace it.

"They literally got the certificate of occupancy for [The Diamond] like four hours before the first pitch was thrown," said Lovallo. "But besides all that I remember all of the excitement, the area was just rejuvenated. They were going to get this crown jewel of baseball, it's what they called it, a double-deck Minor League ballpark with luxury boxes. ... April 17, 1985 they had something like 12,700 in the ballpark. And I just remember the buzz in the ballpark that night. Richmond ended up losing the game to Syracuse."

The Braves won the International League's Governors' Cup in 1986, anchored by the likes of Albert Hall and Gerald Perry. They did it within an environment that, for its era, was second to none.

"The feedback was that [the players] felt as if they were, at the time, in a mini-Major League ballpark," said Lovallo. "John Smoltz says this. ... He had been at Double-A in Glen Falls, New York, when he got traded [from the Tigers] to the Braves organization [in 1987]. And then his next stop is in Richmond. His comment was, 'I walked into that ballpark and I couldn't believe I was in a Minor League stadium.'"

Following the '88 season Lovallo left Richmond for personal reasons and moved back to Connecticut, establishing himself in the Hartford radio market. In 2015 he returned to Minor League Baseball, joining his current partner Jeff Dooley in the New Britain Rock Cats booth. The Rock Cats relocated to Hartford and became the Yard Goats in 2016, playing in the current Minor League crown jewel that is Dunkin' Park.

Lovallo recalls that, in the mid-80s, Hartford mayor Mike Peters visited The Diamond because he wanted to build a similarly-impressive ballpark in his city. That vision did not come to fruition in his lifetime.

"Fast forward to Dunkin' Park, opening in 2017, and now people are coming around from the Eastern League, such as Richmond, and their comment was 'We want one of these in Richmond,'" said Lovallo. "So you see how the tables have turned."

With ballparks, as with everything, crown jewels become long in the tooth. Saying goodbye is part of the process, and Lovallo is grateful he got a final opportunity to call a game at The Diamond.

"The [Flying Squirrels] slogan right now is Diamonds Aren't Forever," said Lovallo. "Very true, but this once-crown jewel of baseball has produced memories that will last forever."