By John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Declan Mullin looked relaxed. There was a smile on his face and a droopy look in his eyes. He was very happy and very, very tired.

Mullin runs Great American Ball Park, and its first Opening Day had come off almost without a hitch - except for the Reds' 10-1 loss to the Pirates, which was out of his control.

Not bad for a guy who had just five hours' sleep over two days.

"It went so well it even amazed us," he said.

Mullin could sleep well. The few glitches in the weekend had been relatively minor. At Friday's exhibition game against Cleveland, fans poured into the main entrance and couldn't quite get the hang of the electronic ticket-reading system, resulting in a crush of fans trying to get to their seats before the first pitch.

Five minutes before the first pitch Friday, there were 12,000 fans in the ballpark, according to the tracking system. Twelve minutes later, there were 38,000. The crush was avoided Monday by moving the ticket readers back and putting an usher at each one to show fans how to scan their tickets. The gates also opened 30 minutes earlier than usual.

Complicating Monday's game were the war and a special guest. First, the game was designated a homeland security "special event," raising the security status of the game.

Then, Mullin said, "No. 41 decides to pay a visit." That would be George Bush, the 41st president and father of the 43rd. "We had the Secret Service here for a number of days," Mullin said.

On a normal game day, Great American Ball Park will have 100 ballpark safety officers, 33 Cincinnati police and 40 Reds security. On Opening Day, there were more than 300 security people in the ballpark.

On Monday, the only unexpected situation involved the Opening Day giveaway. Each fan received a commemorative baseball and lanyard to protect tickets. The boxes led to congestion and long lines in the concourses.

"We have to look at how we do giveaways," Mullin said.

But that's minor, fixable and within his control.

"If we can only win after this," he said.