Our trip started us out from Indianapolis in late June 2009 at the beginning of our first official baseball vacation. While the boys had previously been to an Indianapolis Indians and Peoria Chiefs game, this was really going to be one of their first real baseball experiences. Our first game was at the Dayton Dragons stadium. At this point, we had assumed you could walk up to any minor league park and buy tickets. We did not know how popular baseball was in Dayton! We walked up to the ticket window over an hour before the game and were lucky to get some of their last sets of 4 seats available in the left field edge of upper deck. Besides the upper deck seats, boy were we in for a treat. I have found out sense, as I now read up quite a bit on it, but at the time we did not know how great was the Dayton ballpark. Being our first trip, even though my dad and eye have been to dozens of games, mostly Cubs, we had no minor league frame of reference. Despite the lack of frame of reference, we fell in love with the ballpark. It was incredible from the interactive scoreboard that ran the whole outfield to the old foundry overlooking right field. It was American minor league baseball at its best. As I now know, Dayton is normally ranked one of the top five minor league parks in America. We were blessed with such a start to our first trip. I don't remember the game score two years later, but I do remember we forgot to take our camera to our first game. We were forced to take pictures of the kids with a cardboard cut out of the mascot at Bob Evan's the next morning! 
In our newly started tradition, we bought a Kelly Green Dayton Dragons Mini-Bat.
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