Vegetarian baseball fans at the River Cats' Opening Day today can finally enjoy their 'Cats and dogs, too.

The same applies Friday to devout Catholic fans worried about eating the devil's dogs on Fridays in Lent, when meat is proscribed.

Raley Field, home of the River Cats baseball team, is offering a vegetarian sausage option at the ballpark for the first time this year.

At Tuesday's Raley Field exhibition game, most hot dog lovers left the concession stand with a plain dog, chili dog, or even a Dinger Dog – a long half-pounder with chili and cheese.

Pam Castro opted for the $7 vegetarian Italian sausage.

"I thought, it's healthier," said Castro, who shares a River Cats season ticket.

And it was topped with grilled onions and peppers. "It looked real good," she said.

Hot dogs and baseball go together for many people.

In 2000, the same year the River Cats opened in West Sacramento, ex-Sacramentan and vegetarian Johanna McCloy went to a Dodgers game and found not much to eat besides relish and peanuts.

McCloy made it her quest to get veggie dogs in every major league park through her organization, Soy Happy.

"It's the counterpart thing, what baseball fans are looking for," said McCloy, a Berkeley fan of the Oakland A's, the River Cats' parent team.

Vegetarian hot dogs are now available at 23 fields, according to her website, www.soyhappy.org.

She hasn't focused on minor league teams, but others have, apparently.

"We had requests last year for a veggie hot dog," said Mark Stone, general manager for Ovations, the food and beverage company at Raley Field.

Taste tests for veggie dogs showed that most were "terrible," Stone said. "This one, we thought, was the best."

The Italian dog is a Trader Joe's label item, which disappoints some veggie activists because it isn't vegan.

"It's too bad because you're cutting out a whole segment of the market," said Robert Whitaker, a West Sacramento baseball fan.

Whitaker notes that you can now get vegan food at Denny's, some Chipotle outlets and even at the Round Corner, a dark midtown bar.

Raley Field does offer a vegan black bean burger on a vegan bun. It has several healthy options at the opposite extreme from their new bacon cheeseburger on a doughnut bun.

Those choices might not be enough for Chicagoan Harold Dzierzynski, whose Cubs Opening Day last Friday was marred by the fact that, as an observant Catholic, he had to shun meat.

He wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune wondering about getting a special dispensation from the pope.

"I went without a hot dog," he said, by phone. Wrigley Field does not have a veggie option, McCloy reports.

Not that it would satisfy Dzierzynski. "Oh, man, no," he said. "I'm a purist. It's gotta be all beef or nothing."

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