The jam-packed house at The Hangar cheered. Then they cheered Ken Cloude's first pitch at 7:35 p.m.
They even cheered foul balls. Heck, eight months ago the 6,603 Lancaster JetHawks fans would have been standing in an empty field near the corner of Avenue I and 23rd Street West.
The JetHawks didn't disappoint the largest opening day crowd in Cal League history, scoring six times in the first inning en route to a 7-3 victory over the Visalia Oaks.
Lancaster improved to 9-4, while the Oaks fell to 5-8.
Carlos Villalobos didn't waste any time in extending his hitting streak to 12 games; he yanked a three-run homer down the left field line off Visalia starter Mike Nartker to give the JetHawks a 4-0 lead.
It was Villalobos' first home run of the season - and he was probably the most shocked person in the stadium.
"Surprised," Villalobos said. "I never expected the ball to go out. I'm not a power hitter. I want to make contact - that's my job."
An out later, Scot Sealy - the first to hit a homer in JetHawks history - hit one out to left field to make it 5-0.
"(Nartker) just left a knuckleball that was up," Sealy said. "It was a knuckleball that didn't move at all."
Mike Lanza capped the Lancaster outburst with a double to the gap in left-center field to score Jason Cook with the sixth run.
It was an auspicious beginning for the JetHawks at home; they sent 10 batters to the plate in the first, with six getting hits off Nartker.
Nartker came out after Lanza's hit, going two-thirds of an inning and giving up six runs.
Ken Cloude was the beneficiary of the outburst, but he didn't need the support.
Cloude, a right-hander from Baltimore who was Seattle's sixth-round pick in the June 1993 draft, gave up four hits in seven innings and retired the side in order four times.
Cloude struck out seven, walked none and threw 84 pitches.
He ran into problems in the third, when ex-AV High standout Jeremy Herider celebrated his homecoming with the Oaks' first hit of the game, a single to right with two out.
Lead-off hitter David Roberts followed with a double off the wall in center field to drive home Herider.
The Oaks took advantage of wildness by reliever Jeff Pearce in the eighth to cut the lead to 6-2.
In his first inning of relief, the left-handed Pearce walked the first two batters he faced, and Herider followed with a hit to right that scored Yuri Sanchez.
After Pearce walked another hitter with one out, he was replaced by John Thompson.
Thompson, a right-hander from Seattle who saved 19 games last year at Wisconsin, has been working on whittling his 9.64 ERA down to a respectable figure after two bad outings to start the season.
He struck out Chris Facione and got clean-up hitter Eric Danapilis to hit into a fielder's choice to end the threat.
The JetHawks rallied after two outs for their seventh run in the bottom of the eighth.
Marcus Sturdivant doubled off Roberts' glove in center and Shane Monahan followed with a triple to center.
Thompson gave up a two-out homer to Sanchez in the ninth but got Elvis De La Rosa to ground out to end the game.