CAROLINA BASEBALL: DAY 8
Down East Wood Ducks
We make our way through eastern North Carolina to Grainger Stadium, built in 1949 and home to the Down East Wood Ducks, the Low-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. We arrive as the Woodies are finishing up a postponed game against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (Chicago White Sox affiliate) ahead of our scheduled nightcap.
Dad and I typically arrived at our ballparks about an hour before the game — just before the gates opened. I wanted plenty of time for us to experience each place — to get a good feel for these unique stages built for summertime glory — before the crowds and noise arrived.
This time, fresh from our early dinner at Chef & the Farmer, a game was already in progress when we drove up to Grainger Stadium, home of the Down East Wood Ducks, the Low-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. A rainout the previous night in the Woodies game against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers meant two seven-inning games today and bonus baseball for us.
Built in 1949 for $170,000, Grainger Stadium is the eighth-oldest ballpark in Minor League Baseball. Since it was built, every professional baseball team based in Kinston has played here. And it’s a funky place — with a wooden roof and press box, the home bullpen fashioned as a duck blind, and the visiting bullpen located outside the tall right-field fence, with a small opening for players seated on the other side to see the game.
The teams were scoreless in the sixth inning. The Wood Ducks starter, 19-year-old Josh Stephan, had retired the first 11 batters he faced, and would shut out Kannapolis through five innings. In the seven other innings Stephan pitched for Down East in 2021, he gave up 11 earned runs. So he had a day.
Connor Sechler came in for relief and put up a zero in the sixth, the shadows now making things even tougher on the hitters.
Minor League Baseball in Kinston first landed in 1925 with a team called the Eagles. From 1934-1952, they played in the Coastal Plain League — then a minor league, now a collegiate summer league centered primarily in the Carolinas.
The Eagles joined the Carolina League in 1956, affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Senators, then merged with the Winston Tobs. The Eagles returned in 1962-73, followed by the Kinston Expos in 1974 and Kinston Blue Jays in 1982-85. In 1986, after losing its Toronto affiliation, the club once again took the field as the Eagles, to be replaced by the Kinston Indians the following year. That franchise left town for Zebulon in 2011, claiming the Carolina Mudcats name. Again, I must stress — any of this could be on the midterm.
California League contraction in 2016 meant Carolina League expansion, and the Down East Wood Ducks were launched in 2017 as a High-A team in Kinston, claiming the title of co-champions (with the Lynchburg Hillcats) that year. The team’s management had sought a more regional name to appeal to fans outside of the 20,000-strong Kinston, and Down East — meaning, down in the coastal plains of eastern North Carolina — fit the bill.
The Wood Duck, of course, is a beautiful local waterfowl and shares a certain, um, connection with the area’s passion for hunting.
The teams struggled to make any headway in the late-afternoon sun. Batters seemed to be a step behind everything. But in the top of the seventh, Kannapolis center fielder James Beard, who finished this game hitting .188 on the year, approached the plate with the bases loaded. The count went full. And he walked, sending home the winning run and earning him an RBI.
Players walked back to their clubhouses, some stopping to sign autographs for fans.
We did not wait long before the two sides returned to the diamond. The Woodies and switched from their camouflage tops to their all-whites with their country-dinner font across the chest.
Getting shut out in the first game against last-place Kannapolis was not a good start for a Down East team that was in a playoff fight with the Carolina Mudcats and Salem Red Sox. They needed a win in game two.
After a scoreless first, the Wood Ducks pushed across their first run of the day with three consecutive singles to start the second. But Cannon Ballers starter Sean Burke struck out the next two Wood Ducks and managed to keep the score to 1-0 after two.
John Matthews
But it would be enough for Down East in the night game, because Wood Ducks starter John Matthews had the night of his career. An eighth-round pick out of Kent State University in 2019, this utilityman (who also played first and third) finished his year in Kinston with a 6.78 ERA in 24 appearances. But on this night, he dominated the Cannon Ballers, racking up 10 strikeouts while giving up just three hits and a walk in 5 2/3 innings.
I walked down the first-base side to see the unusually arranged bullpen beyond the outfield fence.
I looked back toward families in the patio seating on the first-base side, concessions close by, a ballgame and baseball skies turning like comforting clockwork before them. A thing of beauty, all of it.
Although Dad had long ago made his trip to the team store to pick up his logo ball, I had yet to stop by myself. But now I was ready. I had scouted every single piece of merchandise available for every Minor League Baseball team in the Carolinas. And the item I most coveted most was this one, simple, beautiful hat. It was time to claim my hat.
All I had to do was choose between the items still in stock: a hat size of 7 1/8 or 7 7/8. I am a 7 1/2. Curse you, late-season inventory!!!
In the bottom of the third, Burke hit a batter and threw a wild pitch but recorded two strikeouts before being taken out for reliever Angel Acevedo, who gave up hits to the next two batters. 3-0 Woodies.
Down East scored one in the fifth inning, then brought home three more in the sixth on four consecutive singles, bringing cheers in Spanish from the dugout with each base knock.
The Down East bullpen shut out Kannapolis for the last four outs, and it ended 7-0 Wood Ducks. Kannapolis had scored one run in the course of two seven-inning games, getting outscored 7-1, and they had earned the split.
