CAROLINA BASEBALL: GAMES 16-17
Durham Bulls
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Dad and I finish our grand tour of Carolina ballparks with a doubleheader to see the Durham Bulls. The team pays tribute to the anniversary, including a fantastic on-field competition between Durham police and firefighters. All that and Ripken the Bat Dog!
For the grand finale of our 16-game Carolina baseball odyssey, Dad and I drove back down from the Blue Ridge Mountains and made our way to Durham, North Carolina, for a doubleheader with the Durham Bulls, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays and the most famous team in Minor League baseball
Duke University
On our way into town, we made a stop at Duke University for a few quick photos.
Durham Athletic Park
Next we drove to Durham Athletic Park, the original home of the Durham Bulls. Scenes from Bull Durham were filmed here, along with ballpark locations we had already visited in Asheville and Wilson. I had hoped to just get a few photos through the fencing, but there was a high school summer ball game underway when we arrived, and we were able to get a good look at this historic field.
Durham Bulls Athletic Park
We then drove a short distance to the current Durham Bulls ballpark, Durham Bulls Athletic Park, commonly referred to as “DBAP.” Designed by baseball-architecture king Populous for $18.5 million and opened in 1995, DBAP is located in the American Tobacco Historic District – a collection of brick warehouses that closed in 1987 and then re-opened as shops and dining.
The home plate entrance to the ballpark filters fans into the team store, where we paused to consider which of these fine hats we absolutely needed. That really didn’t help narrow things down, so we both just chose the classic, all-blue home cap.
DBAP is a proper Triple-A ballpark, seating 10,000 and featuring a full second deck of seats. But its most famous element is the Snorting Bull sign that presides over the 32-foot-tall “Blue Monster” wall in left field. When Bulls players hit a home run, smoke rises from the Snorting Bull’s nostrils, and its eyes glow red. The sign includes the phrase “Hit Bull Win Steak,” which succinctly describes the reward for players whose long-balls hit the bull. In the grassy area below the bull is a consolation prize: “Hit Grass Win Salad.”
The Bulls were founded in 1902 as the Durham Tobacconists., but their independent league folded before the end of the season. They re-founded as the Bulls in 1912, affiliated with the Reds, and remained in the Minor Leagues through 1967. They became the Raleigh-Durham Mets, Phillies, and, from 1970-71, the Triangles — an independent team that disbanded in 1972.
Baseball and the Bulls returned to Durham in 1980 with a High-A franchise, affiliated with the Atlanta Braves. When Durham was awarded a Triple-A franchise in 1998, the High-A team moved to Myrtle Beach.
I walked the main concourse and admired the interesting expressions of the Durham Bulls brand, including the Bull Durham Beer Co., the only on-site brewery within a Minor League ballpark.
The Bulls would be playing a day-night doubleheader (seven innings apiece) against the Norwich Tide, the Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. Tides catcher Adley Rutschman, the top prospect in all of baseball at the time, stretched out in the Norwich bullpen, while starting pitcher Kyle Bradish — the Orioles #8 prospect — walked onto the field.
Bulls players gathered in their home whites around Durham starting pitcher Brent Honeywell, the #22 prospect in the Rays organization.
The Durham was one of three Tampa Bay Rays affiliates having a very strong season in 2021. The Bulls, Bowling Green Hot Rods, and the Charleston RiverDogs would finish the season with a combined record of 250-118. In the absence of a playoff series during COVID-19, the Bulls would go on to be awarded the title of Triple-A champions by MiLB.com.
The game kicked off with a run from the visitors. Bradish made it count, cruising through the first four scoreless innings.
For the third time on the trip — the others being day games in Charlotte and Winston-Salem — my phone gave out from overheating just as the game began. The sun felt inescapable. At one point, a sliver of shade moved across my seat, and I contorted to move as much of my body into it as possible.
But at least I wasn’t wearing a heavy-headed mascot costume. Wool E. Bull stomped through the concourse, bearing the responsibility gracefully.
For lunch, I settled on a BBQ Plate, which was pretty good.
Durham got on the board through a solo homer by Tampa Bay’s first-round pick in 2020, Alika Williams, who had started the year at Low-A Charleston before jumping a level to Double-A Bowling Green, and who was now making his Triple-A debut in Durham.
It was the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and so there were tributes and special events throughout the day. There was also a series of competitions between the cities police officers and firefighters that began with an inflatable sumo battle and ended after the night game with a lip-sync battle. (Check the video at bottom.)
Norwich put together three consecutive singles to start the sixth but managed to score just once.
Down 3-1 in the seventh, the Bulls put two runners on base, including a second hit by Williams. But Tides closer Félix Bautista — who would compile a 1.54 ERA in 40 games across three levels of Minor League Baseball in 2021 — got three strikeouts and shut things down for the afternoon.
Between Games
Dad and I grabbed refreshments at Tobacco Road, a restaurant and watering hole overlooking left field. He had a close eye on one TV showing his Oregon Ducks while I swigged down three diet sodas.
As part of the 9/11 remembrance, a row of first-responder vehicles lined the street just outside the ballpark, with officers and firefighters on hand to invite kids to have a look. It was a slightly weird mix of innocence and menace.
Game 2
We had a special treat in store for our second game. Back when I first announced this trip on Twitter, Glen Wieger — who hangs out with a group of Twitter guys who do ballpark trips — reached out to me to ask where I was sitting. I gave him the seat numbers, and he replied with a photo of his tickets... right next to ours. “Hello, neighbor!” he wrote.
Wieger had come to Durham with his wife and two kids as part of a bigger trip. He and his group had met up in Missoula earlier in the year to see the independent Missoula Paddleheads and had plans to get together in 2022 for Wieger’s home team in Florida, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Shane Baz started the second game for the Bulls — his second appearance on our trip, the other being a commanding performance in Charlotte. The home team had switched into their sharp blue jerseys.
The tides were in their all-grays for the nightcap. They sent out Blaine Knight as their starter. Knight began the year pitching very well at High-A Aberdeen (2.41 ERA) before struggling some at Double-A Bowie (5.04 ERA) and now really struggling at Triple-A Norfolk (where he would end with an 8.49 ERA).
Both starters pitched a scoreless first inning. And then it was time for something truly important.
Ripken the Bat Dog appears at many Bulls home games. He has a simple job: When batters leave home plate and the action is complete, Ripken leaps onto the field, collects the bat, and trots back to the dugout. The delight this gives the crowd is indicative of the Minor League Baseball experience — no matter what’s happening in the game, fans are smiling, having fun, enjoying moments of delight with their community.
We had expected to see at least two bat dogs on this trip, including Slider, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans bat dog who is older and more laid back about his job — a beach bat dog, if you will. But Slider had minor surgery days before our arrival in Myrtle Beach, so Ripken was our first bat-dog experience. And he was such a good boy. (Check the video at the bottom to see Ripken in action.)
Glen’s photo of me, taking video of Slider, who has a GoPro that is taking video of me and Dad
For dinner, I decided to go for the Hoppyummy Beer Brat. it was fine, but I preferred the afternoon’s BBQ Plate.
The Bulls picked up two runs in the second and two more in the third to take a 4-0 lead.
Shane Baz
Norfolk right fielder Kyle Stovers took advantage of a rare mistake from Shane Baz in the fifth, hammering a two-strike pitch over the left-field wall. But otherwise, the Tides were helpless against the right-hander, who would get a playoff start for the Tampa Bay Rays against the Red Sox in October.
Baz finished his dominating six-inning start against the Tides, giving up just one run on three hits, with one walk and 10 strikeouts.
Center fielder Vidal Brujan’s two-run bomb in the bottom of the sixth put the Bulls up 6-1. Closer Phoenix Sanders finished off Norfolk in the seventh, and the home team came away with the win.
We said our goodbyes to Glen and his family, who I hope to see again on some Minor League ballpark junket in the future.
And that was it: Dad and I made it to 16 games in 17 days in 15 ballparks across North and South Carolina. We had explored the states’ history, art, architecture, food, and culture. It was the trip of a lifetime. And a couple of months after it was over, we started planning the next one.