The SkyDome Opens in Toronto

On June 5, 1989, the Toronto Blue Jays played their first game at the SkyDome, losing 5-3 to the Milwaukee Brewers in front of 48,378 fans, the largest home crowd in Toronto baseball history at the time. The stadium itself was the real attraction. The SkyDome was the first major sports venue in North America with a fully retractable roof, a 340-foot steel structure that rode along rails and could open or close in twenty minutes. It also contained a hotel with rooms overlooking the field, the world's largest video display board, and a Hard Rock Cafe built into the concourse.

Two nights earlier, Ontario Premier David Peterson had opened the roof in a ceremony attended by a sellout crowd, but a rainstorm soaked the fans gathered for the variety show. On June 5, clear skies and mild 64-degree weather greeted the baseball crowd, and the roof stayed open.

Paul Molitor led off the game with a double and scored the first run in SkyDome history on a groundout by Gary Sheffield. Jimmy Key started for Toronto and Don August for Milwaukee. The Brewers grabbed control in the fourth when Glenn Braggs homered with Rob Deer on base. Fred McGriff hit the first home run in SkyDome history, a 375-foot shot that contributed to a season in which he would lead the American League with 36 home runs. It was not enough to overcome the Brewers' lead.

The stadium cost $570 million Canadian to build, over budget and years behind schedule. Critics called it a white elephant. But the SkyDome changed how cities thought about stadium design. The retractable roof eliminated weather cancellations without sacrificing the open-air experience on good days. Within a decade, similar designs appeared in Phoenix, Houston, Milwaukee, and Seattle. The building was renamed Rogers Centre in 2005, but the generation of fans who filled it through the Blue Jays' back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993 still called it the SkyDome.