The Cincinnati Reds and Dayton Dragons have announced that there will be a “Futures Game” in Dayton this spring on April 1st. This is unlike the game that will be played the day before, which will feature the Reds playing a tune up spring training exhibition game against the Louisville Bats in Louisville.

From the Press Release:

The Cincinnati Reds will visit Fifth Third Field in Dayton when they battle their top prospects in a “Futures Game” on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 1:35 p.m. The game will feature current Reds players against the organization’s top Minor League talent in the stadium where many of the current Reds players and top prospects once played. The game will open the 2017 baseball season in Dayton as the Reds take the field against a team consisting of their best minor league prospects currently playing at the Triple-A, Double-A, and Single-A levels. Dragons fans will have the opportunity to see today’s Reds players as well as many of the players expected to be key contributors in Cincinnati in years to come—all on the same day.

This will be the second time that the organization has put on a “Futures Game” in Dayton, last doing so in 2009. That was actually the first game that I worked as a credentialed media member (we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?). In that game Todd Frazier, who was still a minor leaguer at the time, hit an absolute bomb of a home run for the Futures team that landed on top of the roof of a concession stand well behind the left field wall. The team has also held one other “Futures Game”, playing it at Great American Ballpark in April of 2012. They have held several other exhibitions against the minor league teams over the years.

It may be tough to come by tickets for this event, as season ticket holders will get the first opportunity to buy tickets, but if you’d like to be added to the wait list, you can go to this link and fill out the necessary information to be added.

For some fun laughs, here’s a video of Todd Frazier singling from the game in 2009, that was one of the first videos I ever uploaded to Youtube for the site. The quality, the graphics… oh boy. We’ve come a long way since then.