When the new Cinergy Field opens its gates Monday, the man who is in charge of “game day” will be returning the game to its roots.

        Declan Mullin, 44, the Reds' new stadium operations director, was born and reared in Ireland, as was Andy Leonard (County Cavan), the left fielder of baseball's first professional team, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.

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        Two weeks ago, when The Enquirer first contacted Mullin for this story, he had just come off sinus surgery and was going to see the doctor that day for a followup. Mullin's nose had been broken so many times playing rugby, he could hardly breathe through it. He'd been toying with the idea of playing rugby in Cincinnati. But now it's official: He has hung up his cleats to smell the roses — and the popcorn.

        Baseball has always been an immigrants' game. In the 1880s and 1890s, the Irish immigrants and their offspring dominated it. (One of the greatest Reds pitchers ever, Tony Mullane, who broke in with the Reds in 1886, was born in County Cork). These days, most of the game's immigrants are from Latin American countries; the Far East is making its impact felt, too.

        Mullin loves the blended ethnicity of it all and especially the age span of the fans who come to the ballpark: “babies in backpacks” to octogenarians. It is his job, and that of his staff of 325, to personalize to the fans the openness of the ballpark and the thrill of the grass.

        “There is no game like baseball and no venue like a ballpark,” Mullin said. “I love this game, and I love this place.”

        The venue of which Mullin is in charge today caused him to fall in love with the game ... and a woman who could explain it. Now it's his job to have you fall in love with it, too.

        Only four years before becoming a U.S. citizen in 1992, Mullin met his future wife, Stacy Cole, and watched his first baseball game at the same place: the red seats above first base at Riverfront Stadium.

        Monday, he'll have a different vantage point: all over the place.

        Untethered is a familiar status for Mullin. He was born and raised in County Derry, Northern Ireland, with nine siblings (“the first one up was the best-dressed,” he said) and was educated at the University of St.Helen's in England, where he also received his early training in stadium management.

        Serendipity led him to Cincinnati (his brother, Michael, was here), kept him here (Stacy), and brought him back (after running the Memphis and Atlantic City convention centers, he ran the Museum Center and Firstar Center, before joining the Reds last July).

        Michael Mullin was in the early wave of Mullin-sibling emigrants out of Ireland. When the “troubles” (clashes between the Protestants and Catholics) came to Derry when Declan was 9, the Mullin children soon realized their brightest future was outside Ireland, in England and the United States. The five Mullins in the States have become passionate baseball fans.

        Their father, Francis, liked to watch cricket (“a thinking man's game,” he called it) and made his children watch it with him when they were misbehaving. When Francis invariably nodded off, the punishee would try to sneak off and Francis would always wake up — and ask what he'd missed.

        “Cricket is baseball on Valium,” Declan said. “Besides, how can you take it the least bit seriously when the positions have names like "silly mid-on' and "silly mid-off?'”

        No matter the score of Monday's game, you'll never convince Mullin there was so much as a slow moment in it.

Bowden makes deals - and enemies Opening Day schedule of festivities Special Section: Insider's look at Cinergy Field SULLIVAN: Cinergy Field reborn too late Griffey decision will wait Is strong start important? New season, same old Brennaman Young glad he chatted with Gooden Game report: Phillies 8, Reds 0 Mullin adds green to Reds Ten Questions with: Doug Gallant

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