Gather round, kiddies, and listen up. Today, you are being asked for help in solving one of the great mysteries of our time … one that continues to haunt absolutely no one but, nevertheless, needs some sort of resolution. Tying up a very loose end, so to speak.

Drumroll, please. 

Who named The Diamond “The Diamond?” 

I kid you not. 

Born April 17, 1985, funeral scheduled for the end of the current baseball campaign … the identity of the party who submitted the name still is unknown.

“I figured somebody would show up … when the time was right,” Bobby Ukrop said recently. “It would have been a fun thing, but I didn’t worry about it. At this point I don’t know what we would do if we found out … but it would be nice to know.”

After four decades, the “we” has dwindled to a precious few … like Ukrop, at 78 still ageless, with signature enthusiasm for any good cause … and Richard Andersen, 72, who as Richmond Braves general manager carried the brunt of the transformation from old Parker Field to new The Diamond.

They, along with Bob Dahlstedt, director of planning for Henrico County; Tim Finnegan and Peter Boisseau from the local PR/advertising firm of Finnegan and Agee; Dick Hollander, chief counsel for the Norfolk and Western Railroad; and the Richmond Metropolitan Authority’s Mike Berry, were part of the Stadium Operating Committee that was charged with building, then running and maintaining, the new facility on the Boulevard.

The burning question was: What to call the darn thing?

BACK IN THE DAY, like 40 years ago, the naming of sports venues wasn’t decided by the highest bidder … at least not here.

There was no CarMax Park. Heck, there was no CarMax.

I can only imagine the reaction, none of it good, had the downtown arena been called the Wonderful Pistachios Coliseum … which, by the way, was the title sponsor of a NASCAR race at Fairgrounds Raceway in 2011.

For the most part, we tended to honor people by attaching their last names … like baseball’s (Eddie) Mooers Field and (Dr. William H.) Parker Field … or settled for the familiar, easy-to-remember … like City Stadium and Richmond Arena ... in other words, traditional if borderline boring.

So when the Atlanta Braves threatened to take their Triple-A farm team and leave town if they didn’t get a new, modern ballyard, up from the rubble that was 32-year-old Parker Field came a new facility of concrete, concrete and more concrete built in a record seven months … from one season to the next without skipping a beat.

While there were numerous calls to name it after Frank Soden, long-time (and very popular) local sportscaster, the group entrusted with the care and feeding of the new park opted for The Diamond … after much debate and even a small group of people who came, armed with signs and vitriol, to oppose it.

“I won’t say it was all in fun, but it wasn’t a hardcore protest either,” Ukrop said. “They were trying to make a point that we shouldn’t change the name. As much as they disliked Parker Field they liked the name, supposedly.”

Had the naysayers read the moving letter from the still-unidentified fan … responding to a name-your-new-park contest … they might have changed their minds. In 369 words, the writer made a simple but eloquent pitch (sorry about that) for “The Diamond,” ending with: “… Let’s make the diamond we’re building together a monument to [the] magic of the game and to the best in us.”

(To take a really deep dive into all things The Diamond, you’ll have to read “Miracle on the Boulevard” ($29.95) … by Ukrop, Phil Stanton and Randy Hallman, published in 2018, with lots of pictures and graphics. A copy of the letter is on Page 62.)

Suffice to say, it was a community effort, a rare partnership among the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico with the city of Richmond, the likes of which haven’t been seen before or since. The final cost was $8 million, with the municipalities sharing half the cost with a sale of bonds.

The rest, believe it or not, was raised via fund raisers like raffles and the sales of pins, hats and t-shirts – virtually a dollar at a time – all spurred by a catchy slogan, "Diamonds Aren’t Forever" (meaning Parker Field)  that evolved into a more basic “Help Pitch-In to Build a New Ballpark.”

Oh, and tireless work on behalf of the project by Ukrop, Hollander and Andersen probably had something to do with its resounding success, too.

Perhaps it was that unusual, seldom-seen spirit of togetherness in the quest for common good that made the letter, hand-written on lined, three-hole notebook paper … by someone clearly serious about the subject … so special.

“The way it was written, somebody said it had to be by an advertising person, but it was more than that,” Ukrop said. “To me it was more thoughtful than it was cutesy.”

All he knows for sure is, it wasn’t signed ...yet the author, playfully, as if to give a hint to his identity but otherwise confounding the committee even more, wrote at the bottom … “A fan on the left side of the field.”

“That’s it,” said Ukrop, adding, “It had to be a season-ticket holder or somebody who was there a lot.”

He also said only he knew the exact words and didn’t reveal them until recently because it would have been an ideal way to make sure whoever took credit – assuming someone would, that is – wasn’t lying.

Of course, a handwriting comparison would have done the trick, too. And that eliminated a likely suspect, the late Bill Millsaps, of Times-Dispatch sports writing fame. “It got so he couldn’t read his own hand writing,” said wife Nancy.

Ukrop, Andersen and Berry all denied they were the author, and there is no reason not to believe them … after all this time?

“I would think that if it had been somebody in sports … at some point they would have said, ‘Oh, by the way, did you ever find out who it was?’ then kinda snickered,” Ukrop said.

Dahlstedt, Finnegan and Hollander are dead, and none … before leaving for the great beyond … told anyone (as far as we know) “I did it.”

Maybe it’s better that we never know. Ukrop still remembers Dahlstedt ... “sitting across from me, reading the letter aloud for the first time and saying, ‘That’s really cool.’ I mean, it was all motherhood, apple pie and baseball. He was right … really cool.

“You know, we offered a prize. I think the Braves put up two box seats … and nobody showed up to claim it.”

Thursday, the Flying Squirrels will gave replicas of The Diamond to the first 2,000 fans who attend the 6:30 p.m., game with the Chesapeake Baysox … so it’s only fitting that Andersen, who now calls Huntington Beach, California, home, will be on hand to join Ukrop, Berry and others who likewise were involved back in the day for a reunion of sorts.

It will be 40 years to the day since the first pitch was thrown there. Who knows? Maybe someone will use the occasion to fess up, unlikely though that might be after all these years.

One of these days Ukrop will stop his busy world, get off temporarily and look for the letter. “I put it somewhere … I’m just not sure where,” he said.

Naturally, Ukrop would like to know who wrote it … “but I don’t lose any sleep over it,” he said. “I’m guessing that, by now, he or she is in heaven … and I hope rejoicing knowing what they wrote came true.”