Dan Fechtel used a pair of Cinergy seats to recreate his first date (a baseball game) with Peggy Nero, then proposed marriage as they in his seats at home. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

        Questions arose when otherwise normal folks went 'round the bend in trucks and trailers and transportation big enough to haul home significant chunks of Cinergy Field.

        It was 2000, and Cinergy, still Riverfront Stadium to most of these eager consumers, was coming apart at the seats. Hundreds of buyers, mostly men, converged on a Linwood salvage yard to select and buy stadium signs, flag poles, synthetic turf and, mostly, bright red, yellow and green seats.

        We gave the adoptions some time, then asked readers to tell us their stories. What did they do with those seats? More than 100 responded with detailed answers to questions like “Why?”

        For most, it was a matter of memories — about sports and more.

On bended knee

        Dan Fechtel remembered his first date with Peggy Nero and used a pair of red Cinergy seats to recreate it the night he proposed.

        On Dec. 14, more than two years after their initial Sunday afternoon outing to a Reds game, he arranged the chairs in her Hyde Park living room while she was gone. A substitute seat label matched the ticket stub he had saved and taped to her door.

        After showing her to her seat, he knelt and popped the question ... and hit a home run.

        Since then, the chairs have been returned to storage in Mr. Fechtel's Villa Hills garage, but, “For one night, the red seats were brought out to create a magical moment for us,” Ms. Nero said. “We are both big sports fans and find it neat that a ball game played such a big part in jump-starting our relationship.”

Dad's seat folded

        When Darren Cordrey learned that stadium seats were going to be sold, “I knew that I had to get some.”

        It was Aug. 17, 1984, when Mr. Cordrey and his brother Darryl enjoyed their last baseball game with their father, who died the following spring.

        The three of them had been in the green seats, aisle 228, row 12, seats 101, 102 and 103. Pete Rose was back, as Reds player-manager, and life was good.

        Six years later, at the stadium salvage sale, “I had only one thing on my mind,” Darren recalled. “Green seats. 101, 102, 103.”

        With help from a friend, he found them, and fixed them, and affixed them to his backyard deck in Westwood. “They may not have been the exact section, or row, but to me they were,” he said.

        “The first time I went out there to listen to Marty and Joe (broadcasters Brennaman and Nuxhall) and the Reds, I just sat there, with the seat next to me down for someone to join me. I felt sad and happy. It brings me closer to my father at least in my heart.

        “Dad's seat, seat 103, is always down.”

Husbands 4, wives 0

        While stadium seats helped strengthen a relationship for Mr. Fechtel and Ms. Nero, they might have strained others.

HOLD ON TO YOUR SEAT

Got your eye on a particular piece of Cinergy Field?   Expect some competition from buyers other than your Tristate neighbors.   In earlier liquidation sales from the stadium, Jackie Schurger, O'Rourke Wrecking Co. reports:   “We held seats for a police officer in Garland, Texas, until he could take a vacation and pick them up.   “A sailor on the USS Chosin, somewhere off the coast of Hawaii, e-mailed us for seats. We held them for him several months, and he finally found a friend to come pick them up.   “We had a request for seats from a man in Norway, but he found they would be too costly to ship.”   The company shipped turf to San Diego, Littleton, Colo.; Lexington, S.C.; Springfield, Ill., and Leesburg, Va.   One prospective buyer was interested in a good used urinal.   None was for sale.

        “My husband spent the entire day at the sale (and) brought home a truckful of blue seats,” says Vicki Meno Ficke, Montgomery. “I thought it was a wasted day for him, but he insisted the seats were part of his heritage, having grown up in Cincinnati.”

        Jim Hipple, Miamisburg, has four red seats in what he calls his Reds corner of baseball memorabilia.

        “My wife had a little different decor in mind for our living room, but she couldn't stand seeing a grown man cry.”

        Mark Neumeister, of Indianapolis, says his pair of red seats “make a great conversation piece, (and) they also work well between games as a plant stand ... It was the only thing I could think of to tell my wife when she laughed at me for driving from Indianapolis to buy stadium seats.”

        “Initially, my wife was going to hate them, but even she really likes them now,” says Roger B. Bryson, Western Hills.

Chairs as gifts

        Some people said they bought chairs as gifts; some received them with excitement.

NEXT SALE

O'Rourke Wrecking Co., which will begin final demolition of Cinergy in November, has not announced a new seat sale date or prices or locations.   “We will as soon as we have a better handle on it,” says Jackie Schurger, executive vice president. “It depends on the Reds' season and how long it lasts.”   And that, of course, depends on the caliber of baseball fans will see in Cinergy's final summer.   For information on future sales, call O'Rourke at 871-1400 or go to www.orourkewrecking.com.

        “When my brother (Tom) visited last Christmas and I presented him with a row of (upper-level) seats, he exclaimed, "The best present I ever received', said Daniel J. Nordeman, of Morrow. “He now has them mounted on his back patio (in San Francisco) where he loyally listens to Marty and Joe broadcasts via the Internet. He told me the other day he still has room for a set of field-level blue seats, too.”

        “For years my mother in-law has been begging me to place a bench under our sycamore tree, next to our lake, so she could enjoy her grandchildren and great-grand children while they fished or boated,” said Ted Buse, Bridgetown.

        “When the seats became available, I decided that this was the answer to my prayers. I not only have seating for my mother in-law but the seats also match the red siding on my house. “What more could a man ask for?” As much as Mr. Nordeman and others want more Cinergy seats, there remain other fans of baseball and football and general nostalgia looking for their first.

        “I have had service men (attempt) to barter (for them),” says Ms. Guetle. “The latest was a gentleman who said he would wallpaper my laundry room for a row of blue seats.”

        For some successful collectors, the enthusiasm continues, from stadium to stadium.

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