No Bull - Durham Had a Classic

By Marshall Adesman

It's hard for me to believe that, in another year, I will celebrate twenty years of living in Durham, North Carolina. Everyone has heard of Durham, either because of Duke University or because of the Durham Bulls baseball club. Odds are you've seen the film "Bull Durham" a time or six. And because of the movie, everyone thinks they know the ballpark, too. 

But they don't play in that old yard any more. They are now in one of those modern "retro" parks, a structure like Baltimore's Camden Yards made of brick and wrought iron that pays homage to the early 20th Century baseball facilities that were inner-city centerpieces and helped to spread the popularity of professional baseball. Constructed in downtown Durham as part of an ongoing effort to resurrect the business district, it holds about 10,000 fans and offers comfortable seats (with cupholders!), plenty of leg room, wide concourses and a great variety of food, drink and amusements. It also features Triple-A baseball as the Bulls, formerly in the Class A Carolina League, have moved up to the minor leagues' highest classification. In short, this new ballpark, which opened in 1995, offers every possible amenity to its numerous visitors. 

Except charm, which the old park had in abundance. 

Like so many towns across the nation, the history of minor league ball in Durham mirrored the social conditions of America. They became members of the Piedmont League in 1920 and stayed there for fourteen seasons as the loop advanced from Class D to Class C to Class B during the "Roaring Twenties." Durham dropped out for two years during the Great Depression, but returned in 1936. The then-new Durham Athletic Park opened shortly thereafter and hosted Piedmont League action until 1944, the very height of World War II, when only ten minor leagues could operate and not a single city in North Carolina was able to field a team. But in 1945 the war was winding down and the Bulls were back, this time in the Class C Carolina League, and they stayed there through 1967 as the leagues ascended to Class B and then Class A. The minor leagues, however, suffered in the 1950s and 1960s: from a high of 59 leagues and 438 franchises in 1949, only 15 minor leagues and 118 cities suited up in 1965. Air-conditioning and television kept people at home; affordable cars and interstate highways let them go to Disneyland instead of to the ballpark. From 1968 through 1971, in an effort to survive, the neighboring cities of Raleigh and Durham combined their teams into one, with home games played in both towns. But fans in the area couldn't get excited about this split-city concept and continued to stay away, and after four years the experiment quietly ended as professional baseball left the Triangle region of North Carolina. 

The turbulence of the 1960s and early 1970s - symbolized first by the fight for civil rights and then by the war in Vietnam and its accompanying protests - finally subsided following the end of the Watergate crisis and Richard Nixon's 1974 resignation. And within a couple of years the recovering nation re-discovered minor league baseball. Young urban professionals, remembering how they had gone to the ballpark with their parents and now motivated by a variety of creative promotional efforts, started bringing their own children out to root, root, root for the home team. 

The economic boom really hit North Carolina's Piedmont. Formerly ruled by tobacco, the area was transformed by the development of the Research Triangle Park, originally constructed for the three major universities (Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State) but then expanded to include government agencies and private businesses. Northerners and Midwesterners were transferred in, and as they settled down they looked for things to do. Miles Wolff, a career baseball man and a North Carolinian by birth, recognized that the area was very different at the end of the 1970s than it had been at the beginning. When the Carolina League decided to expand, Wolff chose to operate a franchise in Durham for the 1980 season. The result exceeded all expectations, as nearly 176,000 fans streamed into the small downtown ballpark. And a legend was born. 

What these "cranks" found was a ballpark just oozing personality out of every pore. When fans walked up to the ticket window they found the three sellers housed in the ground floor of a rounded tower that seemed more appropriate for Rapunzel than for baseball. Rather than a fair maiden, the tower was home to the Bulls' business operations, and from the top of the winding staircase one could look down and see most of the bustling facility. 

Built like a bowl, you entered at the old girl's apex and descended to points east and west. Traversing the narrow concourses was generally done slowly and single-file, but it gave everyone a chance to examine the culinary diversity. One concession stand specialized in a variety of burritos, while another offered either nachos or a chicken sandwich. Down the first-base ramp and behind the bleachers was a wonderful stand that sold hamburgers, cheeseburgers, the best french fries this side of Maryland's Eastern Shore, and a variety of other slower-cooked (and higher-priced) fare. Snack items could be found in a small stand tucked away on the third-base side, and several stations around the park sold a variety of beers. And it was all tied together by the main concession stand, just a few feet from the base of the tower. It was basically the first thing you saw as you entered the park and it offered standard ballpark cuisine like hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts, soft drinks and ice cream, in addition to pizza. It was also (along with the first-base beer stand) the primary place for socializing, the place for friends to meet, grab their grub and find their seats. A beer stand and souvenir stand were also located there and on busy nights this general area looked like a miniature version of Times Square (minus the xxx-rated theaters). 

Oh, Jay also lived there. I don't recall his last name but he was the loud-voiced young man who hawked programs just beyond the main entrance. Everyone knew Jay because he made it his business to get to know you and give you his opinion on any and all topics. Jay was a die-hard Braves' fan, which took a lot of guts through much of the 1980s, but he correctly observed that Atlanta, our parent club, was sending us some good players who would eventually surface in the majors and make the Braves a better team. And with the infusion of such players as Steve Avery, Jeff Blauser, Ron Gant, David Justice and Mark Lemke, Atlanta made its astounding run from last place in 1990 to the World Series in 1991. Other Bulls' alumni such as Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, Javy Lopez and Andruw Jones continued the Braves' success throughout the 1990s. I'm sure Jay has enjoyed every minute of it... and hasn't been shy about sharing his feelings with others. 

If you had box or reserved seats (no luxury boxes in this Depression-era edifice), you walked past Jay and the main concession stand (and also past the door leading to the small administrative offices) and descended down the stairs. Capacity was around 5,000 but very often more than 1,000 other fans were shoehorned in. The covered grandstand could hold upwards of 3,000, and the rest found refuge in the backless bleacher seats along the first or third base lines, or sometimes on the grass beyond the centerfield fence. For some reason the rowdiest fans were almost always found along third base - they not only seemed to enjoy the game a little more, but they also took particular delight in heckling the opposition and baiting the umpires. They certainly had a better view of the field than the denizens of the press box, which was literally a box built at field level right behind home plate. Popups and high flies immediately disappeared from sight, and the official scorer, PA announcer and assorted writers had to watch the players to determine who was chasing the ball. 

The dugouts were small, as befitting a facility built when both rosters and athletes were smaller. The playing field itself was also, um, cozy, with its rightfield line famous throughout the league as an inviting target. It was publicly listed as 305 feet but that was definitely an exaggeration. Miles once told me they had actually measured it at about 291 feet, but knew that Organized Baseball would object to such a short porch and thus they simply didn't publicize the true distance. A side wall of a local business sat just a few feet beyond that rightfield fence, thankfully made of brick because many a blast smashed against it over the course of a summer. In 1984, my first year in Durham, we had a big first baseman named Bob Tumpane, a left-handed pull hitter who must have played pepper with that wall about twenty times. 

Attendance was terrific before the movie - 217,000 poured through the DAP in 1987. They shot "Bull Durham" in September and October of that year and the film opened the following spring; from that point on nothing remained the same. Attendance soared as people came from all over the country to sit in the ballpark they had seen on the big screen. Attendance jumped to 271,000 in 1988 and 300,000 in 1990. 

But there was always a price to pay. While the team was making tons of money and receiving international recognition, the park was bulging at the seams. It had not been designed for that kind of high-volume usage and, now more than fifty years old, it was rapidly showing its age. It soon became apparent that either a major facelift or a brand-new facility was needed in the Bull City. The ensuing political battle took several years, led to a change in ownership and involved several neighboring counties as well as members of baseball's inner circle. However, it was determined that a completely new park was the most cost-effective solution, and in 1995 the Durham Bulls Athletic Park opened and drew nearly 400,000 fans. Three years later, after 18 seasons as the Braves' affiliate in the Carolina League, the Bulls became the Triple-A farm club of the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, where they maintain their status as one of the minor leagues' most successful franchises. 

So everyone is happy, right? Well, not quite. Perhaps I am the only one who still misses the old DAP, now shorn of its bleachers but still used for some high school games and a collegiate summer league, as well as a farmer's market on weekends. The new ballpark is great and I certainly appreciate it, but it's just a building. The old Durham Athletic Park, on the other hand, had its own special personality, charm and vitality, qualities I find lacking in its successor. I still enjoy going to the ballgame, of course, but I'm sorry, there's just something missing, something that can never be recaptured. A victim of her own success, the Grand Dame now lives primarily in the hearts of those who still love her, who still remember when a ballpark was a ballpark and not a stadium. 

Think I'll go downtown and sit in the grandstand, where I can close my eyes and still smell the popcorn being popped. Plenty of room, feel free to join me.