BISCUITS HOME OPENER: Players, fans cherish the return to Riverwalk

Opening Night at Riverwalk Stadium had just about everything except for a win for the Montgomery Biscuits, who fell to the Chattanooga Lookouts on Tuesday. (Graham Dunn)

By GRAHAM DUNN

A normal day for Montgomery Biscuits general manager Michael Murphy begins around 8 a.m. This one started before 6 in the morning.

Nothing was standard about the 2021 home opener for the Biscuits for obvious reasons.

But “Murph” wouldn’t have it any other way.

After the visiting Chattanooga Lookouts handed the Biscuits a 4-2 loss and all the fireworks had exploded above the Riverwalk Stadium scoreboard, Murphy was still smiling, if not just a little bit exhausted.

“(You could tell) there was a lot of energy,” Murphy said following Tuesday’s game. “You could tell fans wanted to be out here. They had so much fun. I had a ton of fun. Our employees were running around trying to keep up but everybody had a great time.”

Biscuits fans had waited more than a year to return to the stadium to see their team play. While it wasn’t a perfect night with Chattanooga playing spoiler, fans were more than happy to have a night at the ballpark.

“I live in Enterprise and it’s a bit of a trip to come, but I am happy to get a chance to come back to a game,” stated Myers Palmer, a season ticket holder. “It seems like we’ve waited a long time for this night.”

The players were equally happy and excited to be back in the butter and blue. Miles Mastrobuoni, who had the Biscuits first hit, a double in the fourth inning. He admitted he was ready to do something special for the fans.

“Fans give you that adrenaline and an extra pep in your step,” he said. “They really support us.

“I think the community comes out and helps us every night. It seems like the fans were ready to come back to the park. I wish we could have had a better performance for them. But we faced a pitcher that is going to make a lot of money in the big leagues one day.”

Murphy had surprises for fans, a few he wasn’t aware of until earlier in the week. Weeks ago, he had received word from Major League Baseball that no one would be allowed on the field during the games.

Yet, on Tuesday, the Biscuits would hold many of their favorite in-between innings contests for fans.

Unfortunately, it caught Murphy and his staff a little off guard.

“We didn’t have anything set in stone to start planning until February,” he said. “There have been a lot of runs from a ticket standpoint, or hiring a staff, not knowing how much of a staff we needed. We didn’t plan on having a Biscuit  Bunch because we were told we couldn’t do contest on the field. That changed last week.

“We hope to increase our staff and open up a few more things. There is a lot that goes into putting a season on and it all piled up in the last few weeks.”

The Biscuits were shut down by one of the Cincinnati Reds’ top prospects. Righthander Hunter Green had Montgomery hitters tied up with his 100-plus mile per hour fastball for most of the evening.

Seaver Whalen had one of the few offensive highlights for Montgomery with a two-run blast over the left-field wall that cut the Lookouts’ lead in half in the fifth inning.

But the Biscuits could muster just two more hit the rest, wasting a solid pitching performance by starter Shane Baz, who gave up one run in four innings of work.

Murphy plans for things to be more normal when the Biscuits and Lookouts meet on Wednesday for Game 2 of the six-game series.

“Now we have 59 more of these and we will look at tonight and see what we need,” he said. “It went pretty smooth considering this was not a normal opening night.”