Mapping the path

EASTERN MIDWEST BASEBALL

Dayton Dragons

We begin our day in Dayton with lunch at The Trolley Stop, then drive around town before visiting the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. As night falls, we head to Day Air Ballpark to see the team with the longest sellout streak in professional sports, the Dayton Dragons, the High-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds.

> Jump to: Watch the Episode

When we reached the hotel after our game with the Akron RubberDucks, I realized with sudden dread that I did not have my Tilley travel hat, my favorite hat in my growing collection. It has been all across the country with me, and to Canada, Sardinia, Venice, Croatia, Montenegro, and Greece. It’s light, fits perfectly, looks good, washes easily, and can be flattened in a suitcase before quickly regaining its shape. It’s an excellent travel hat. That’s T-I-L-L-E-Y, operators are standing by.

I remembered I had left my hat hanging on a rack in the RubberDucks team shop while I tried on an Akron cap. I became irritated and despondent. Without really pausing to think, I ordered a replacement Tilley to be picked up at an REI store in Dayton, Ohio, our next destination. I also reached out to RubberDucks Merchandise Manager Luke Trees — who had been following our trip and briefly introduced himself to me at the ballgame — to see if anyone had found the hat.

Midway through our drive west from Akron to Dayton, I received a message from Luke that he had the hat, confirming it with a photo. He said he would happily send it to my home address. I canceled my REI order, and all was right with the world once again.

The bar and grill was originally known as the “Old Tavern” and “The Liquor Room,” shifting adeptly to “The Ace Restaurant” during Prohibition. During the racy 1970s, when its location near the corner of Fifth and Wayne was known as “Filth-n-Wine,” the tavern was called “The Pickle Barrel.” The Oregon District’s revival since then has made for a much more respectable locale for The Trolley Stop.

We both switched things up a bit for lunch. Dad had the chili spaghetti, and I swear there is both chili and spaghetti under the peppers, onions, and cheese in that photo. I took a break from issuing aggressive, pastrami-forward challenges to my digestive system and had a buffalo chicken wrap.

Along the way, Dayton drew waves of brilliant engineers. Civil engineer Arthur Morgan was an early innovator in hydraulic engineering — key to flood control in a town built around canals. The first mechanical cash register was invented in Dayton, as was the first electric cash register — the product of the National Cash Register Company (NCR), now a multi-billion-dollar corporation.

The town’s most celebrated inventors are the Wright Brothers, who built the original Wright Flyer in their Dayton workshop and in 1903 sent it on the first-ever controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. The Wright Cycle Co. workshop building, dating to 1886, has been preserved for visitors. It sits across from the Wright Brothers National Museum, which contains the Wright Flyer III, built in 1905. A sculpture of the airplane soars over a street corner just a few blocks away.

By “enormous,” I mean absolutely mondo-ginormous. The museum is located in four huge hangers encompassing 19 acres of indoor space. Its construction was completed in 1971 and was driven by Eugene Kettering, whose father Charles helped invent the electric cash register at NCR before founding automotive electronics maker Delco, leading research at General Motors, inventing leaded gasoline and freon, revolutionizing engines for locomotive and heavy equipment, and designing the first aerial missile.

The pioneering days of flight and the missions of World War II are covered in the first hanger.

The second hanger is devoted to the Korean and Vietnam wars.

We have visited smaller flight museums that showcase vintage planes but do little to tell their stories. The level of documentation in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force was astonishing — more thorough than any museum I’ve ever experienced. The displays next to the fascinating machinery told rich stories, gave historical context, and provided detailed technical specs for the enthusiasts.

But the combination of the museum’s vast space and immense detail makes getting through it all a real challenge without setting aside at least a few hours, and I felt bad for not renting a scooter for Dad before we split up.

I hustled through the Cold War exhibits to the Missile Gallery, a 140-foot-tall, silo-like structure containing about a dozen missiles — including Titan I and II, Jupiter, Atlas, and Peacekeeper — plus a handful of rocket engines and satellites. Then I had a good jog back to the entrance to meet up with Dad and head to our hotel before the ballgame.

The Dragons have sold out 1,573 consecutive games as of this writing, which is not only more than any North American sports franchise has ever accomplished, but nearly twice more. Dayton surpassed the previous record of 814, held by the Portland Trailblazers nearly 14 years ago, and is still going strong. In 2024, the Dragons averaged 8,012 fans per game, second-most in all of Minor League Baseball.

Dayton’s rich history with professional baseball goes back to 1884 and the Dayton Gem Citys, who played in the Ohio State League. They were followed by the Dayton Reds, Old Soldiers, Veterans, Aviators, and the Dayton Ducks, who played in the Class B Central League in 1932 and the Class C Middle Atlantic League from 1933-1942.

In 2000, the Rockford (Illinois) Reds relocated to the newly built Day Air Ballpark in Dayton to become the Dragons. They have sold out every game since.

Dragons who went on to do great things in Major League Baseball include Adam Dunn (2000), Wily Mo Peña (2001), Edwin Encarnación (2001–02), Joey Votto (2003–04), Johnny Cueto (2006), Justin Turner (2007), Didi Gregorius (2010), Michael Lorenzen (2013), and Elly De La Cruz (2022). But the team has never won a league title.

Dayton’s team store — The Dragon’s Den — is conveniently located near the front gate. Dad and I were soon inside looking for our respective merch.

The Dragons don’t really do alternate identities — not even a Copa de la Diversión persona. Styles stick to the Dragons primary logo in the team colors of green, white, and black. There is an orange jersey, and one that uses the “Gem City” monicker — Dayton’s nickname and the object of a dragon’s desire — but not much else. Still, the branding is nice, and I was happy to come away with the good-looking home hat.

I took a walk through the concourse, which featured banners at every aisle describing the Dragons experience and celebrating its best players.

The Dragons wore their Gem City jerseys for their game against the visiting Lake County Captains, the High-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. Dayton had finished second to the Captains in the East division during the first half of the season, but they would turn the tide in the second half. The two clubs would meet in the first round of the Midwest League playoffs, with the Captains sweeping the Dragons on their way to the league title.

Dad and I have an established process and set of policies for selecting seats at our ballparks. We start with bucket seats and aisle seats as a requirement, and we try to get between the dugouts, about eight rows back. The first row is fine, too, but the next few rows behind that accentuate the netting in your field of vision.

Before tickets are released, I capture seating charts, satellite images of the ballpark, and photos that give a sense of where the good views are to be found. I put those into an email to Dad with some analysis on where the sun will set, potential obstructions, which side has the home dugout, and more. The moment the tickets are released, I capture the best available options based on my analysis and send Dad an “Aooooga!” text message directing him to his email, where he selects our seats.

But with Dayton, in a ballpark that sells out every night, our options were limited. There were two aisle seats in the top row of the second deck, just past first base. And there were two others in the first row down the left-field line. We chose the latter. It was not the correct decision.

We had another ballpark meetup in Dayton — this time with Michael Holsinger, an avid Ohio sports fan and fellow hat collector who had driven up from the Cincinnati area for the game.

Hosting big crowds every night means having a good number and variety of concessions. The Dragons step up with foot-long hot dogs and bratwursts, beef brisket and pulled pork sandwiches, Philly cheesesteak and chicken sandwiches, and much more.

Because we are always looking for regionally appropriate dishes — and because Dad likes few things more than a good chili dog — we both had Cincinnati Coney Dogs with Skyline Chili.

The Dragons mascots are Heater and Gem, two excellent names for a couple of fire-breathers. I caught Heater strolling the concourse a couple of times, but Gem proved to be too elusive for my camera.

Fan games between innings included a bungee tug-of-war, a t-shirt cannon and a t-shirt slingshot, a ballet dance-off, and kids wearing inflatable body suits racing in opposite directions around the bases, with an opportunity to knock the other over at second base. (Watch the episode!)

The Dragons opened the scoring in the bottom of the third with a hit batter, a single, and a bases-clearing triple by center fielder Carlos Jorge. Dayton added another run in the sixth. Dayton 3, Lake County 0.

That “0” for Lake County not only represented the number of runs they claimed off Dragons starter Ryan Cardona. It was equal to the number of hits the Captains had amassed by the end of the sixth inning. Cardona left the game having faced just 19 batters in six frames, allowing two walks and nothing else.

The effective pitching from both starters made for a zippy game. The innings ticked by quickly. I made my way to the outfield for a trip around the 360-degree concourse before things wrapped up.

Iron gates that rim Day Air Ballpark provide plenty of spacing for passers-by to peek in on the action.

The Dragons tacked on another run in the seventh on a home run by catcher Cade Hunter, who would hit 25 bombs on the year.

Dragons reliever Brock Bell — a seventh-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 2019 — picked up where Cardona had left off, giving up just one single in the final three innings. Dayton won it 4-0.

Dad and I had experienced some long nights at the ballpark — doubleheaders, extra innings, doubleheaders with extra innings — but this game was completely different: It finished in exactly two hours, a complete blur for baseball. It was all for the best. We had an early morning and more than five and a half hours of driving ahead of us.

> NEXT: Springfield Lucky Horseshoes