LANSING - It was a night of firsts for Lansing Lugnuts fan Jim Manley, who attended the team’s home opener against the West Michigan Whitecaps on Thursday at Oldsmobile Park.

It was the first time the former Oldsmobile employee and the 6,500 fans in attendance saw the minor league baseball team play this season and the first time they could view a colorful “Hall of History” mural on the south wall of the stadium, which is dedicated to Lansing’s automobile and baseball heritage.

Two things Manley knows well.

“It shows how much cars are a part of American culture - just like baseball,” he said.

The decorative paintings combine 100 years of historic Oldsmobile graphics with 100 years of minor league baseball players.

“We started the project because 2001 is the 100th anniversary of minor league baseball,” Lansing Lugnuts Owner Tom Dickson said. “We decided to put 100 years of Oldsmobile history together with that and commemorate a century of baseball and automotive history in mid-Michigan.

“The mural will be a powerful testament to the city’s heritage.”

Jamie Robinson, a food service manager at Oldsmobile Park, said the placement of the mural, in the 11,000-person capacity stadium, adds to the park’s aroma of roasted nuts and organ music.

“When I first came in here the other day I realized how much brighter it was,” the Lansing Sexton High School senior said. “It just lightens up the field.”

Many of the Lugnuts fans stopped to admire the historical depiction of the concourse-level exhibit before taking their seats in the half-packed park.

“Oldsmobile really started in Lansing in 1897,” said Ed Stanchak, director of the Oldsmobile Heritage Center, 414 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing. “The mural is important from the standpoint that here, in Lansing, we have the beginning of the domestic automobile.”