2005: A New Beginning
Today is Opening Day for the 2020 MLB season… or at least it would have been, if not for the COVID-19 outbreak that has put our entire world, and basically all sports, on an indefinite hold. However, without the coronavirus, today would have also been 15 days until MiLB Opening Day. With 15 seasons in the books for the West Virginia Power, it’s to turn back the calendar and revisit each of the first 15 Opening Days in Power history.
Of course, we start at the beginning, which for the Power, was in 2005. Not only had the organization recently rebranded from their previous moniker, the Charleston Alley Cats, they also switched affiliates from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Milwaukee Brewers and bid farewell to Watt Powell Park in lieu of Appalachian Power Park.
While the doors to Charleston’s new downtown facility would not open until April 14, 2005, the West Virginia Power kicked off their new tenure April 7 in Hagerstown, Maryland, with a four-game series at Historic Municipal Stadium.
The first game in Power history was not one to write home about, as the team fell, 9–1, and was held to just four hits (three of them doubles). Freddy Parejo etched himself into the record books, as his seventh-inning double of Michael Devaney scored Carlos Corporan, notching the first RBI in Power history.
While the then-21-year-old never made it past Triple-A (16 games with Nashville in 2009), seven players from that game did make it to the majors: Corporan, Alcides Escobar, Hernan Iribarren and Mark Rogers from West Virginia, along with Mike Carp, Carlos Gomez and Carlos Muniz from Hagerstown.
The Power’s Opening Day loss in 2005 cued a seven-game losing streak to start their new era, as West Virginia didn’t win its first game with their current moniker until their home opener April 14, exacting revenge on the Suns with an 8–3 thumping in front of more than 5,300 fans. That dismal stretch would actually prove notable in the annals of Power history, as the team did not go winless on a multi-series road trip again until the 2018 campaign, when they dropped all seven games of a rain-soaked road trip through Lexington, Ky., and Kannapolis, N.C.
By the way, West Virginia has only opened the season in Hagerstown one other time in Power history (2012)… they lost 11–9.
Come back tomorrow as we look back at Opening Day for the 2006 season!
