Durham Bulls

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Durham Bulls
Durham Bulls
League International League
Division South Division
Year founded 1902
Major League affiliation Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Home ballpark Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Previous home ballparks Hanes Field, Durham Athletic Park
City Durham, North Carolina
Current uniform colors blue, Texas tan, black
Previous uniform colors
Logo design A blue "D" outlined in white and Texas tan with a charging, black bull interwoven.
Division titles
League titles 2002, 2003
Manager Charlie Montoyo
Owner Jim Goodmon[1]

The Durham Bulls are a minor league baseball team based in Durham, North Carolina. The team, which plays in the International League, is the AAA (Triple-A) affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays major-league club. The Bulls play in Durham Bulls Athletic Park, better known as the "D-Bap", located in downtown Durham. The team became internationally famous in 1988 following the release of the movie Bull Durham, which starred Kevin Costner as a catcher for the Bulls and Susan Sarandon as his love interest.

At the time of Bull Durham, both the real Bulls and their movie counterparts played in the high-A Carolina League, two steps below their current position in the Triple-A IL. The team moved up in 1998, when the Triple-A leagues expanded by two teams to accommodate affiliates for the major league expansion Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Contents

[edit] History

The first Durham professional baseball franchise officially formed as the Durham Tobacconists on March 18, 1902, with W. G. Bramham, later President of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (Minor League Baseball), as the owner. They took the field for the first time on April 24 in an exhibition game against Trinity College. Their first game in the North Carolina League was at Charlotte on May 5 against the Hornets, and their first home game was against the New Bern Truckers on May 12. The league, however, folded in July, not having played a full season.

In December 1912, the team re-formed as the Durham Bulls in the North Carolina State League. Their first game was on April 24, 1913 at Hanes Field on the Trinity College campus (now the East Campus of Duke University). They defeated the Raleigh Capitals 7-4. On May 30, 1917, however, the North Carolina State League folded due to the beginning of World War I. The Bulls were declared league champions, even though the season was shortened to only 36 games.

The Bulls then joined the Piedmont League, a minor league with clubs scattered around Virginia and North Carolina, on October 31, 1919. Seven years later, in 1926, the team moved to its new home, El Toro Park. The park was dedicated on July 26 by the Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who put on a show by riding a real bull, the team mascot, onto the playing field.

Six years later, in 1932, the team became affiliated with the National League's Philadelphia Phillies, the first of ten teams that the Bulls have been affiliated with. The next year, the city of Durham purchased El Toro Park, renaming it the Durham Athletic Park after the 1933 season, but the Bulls were unable to operate for the 1934 and 1935 seasons due to the Great Depression. Then, on June 17, 1939, the Durham Athletic Park burned to the ground, hours after the Bulls had defeated Portsmouth 7-3. The groundskeeper, Walter Williams, who slept under the stands, was able to escape. In a remarkable two-week turnaround, the Durham Athletic Park was functioning again by July 2, with the old wooden grandstand replaced by concrete and steel. The stadium also included temporary bleachers and seated 1,000 people. The crowd that day saw the Bulls beat the Charlotte Hornets 11-4.

The stadium was completed in April 1940 in time for an exhibition game on April 7 between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, that attracts 5,574 fans. Only 1,587 turned out ten days later for the Bulls' first game of the season. On September 5, 1943, the last-place Bulls played their last Piedmont League game, beating Richmond 15-5. The following year, the Piedmont League became an all-Virginia league, and there was no baseball in Durham in 1944.

In 1945, a second Carolina League formed, and on April 27 the Bulls played their first game in the new league, defeating the Burlington Bees 5-0. Three years later, in September 1948, Tom Wright, a former outfielder with the Bulls, became the first Carolina League player to make the majors when he debuted with the Boston Red Sox. And three years after that, the Bulls made history when their 5-4 loss to the Danville Leafs featured the first black player in Carolina League history, Percy Miller Jr., who played for the Leafs.

Football Hall of Famer Clarence Parker was the Bulls' manager from 1949-52.

The old bull from Durham Athletic Park
The old bull from Durham Athletic Park

It would not be until April 18, 1957 that the Bulls would field African-American players. On that day, third baseman Bubba Morton and pitcher Ted Richardson took the field in a loss to Greensboro. That season also saw the first Carolina League All-Star game played in Durham.

In 1968, the Bulls merged with the Raleigh club and formed the Raleigh-Durham Mets, an affiliate of the New York Mets, playing half of its home games in the Durham Athletic Park and half in Raleigh, but before the 1972 season, the team folded and baseball would not return to Durham until 1980. On June 22 of that year, the local CBS affiliate broadcast the Bulls game locally, the first time that the Bulls had ever been broadcast on television. Ten years later, on August 30, 1990, a crowd of 6,202 made the Bulls the first class-A team in history to pass the 300,000 mark in attendance for an entire season.

Team owner Miles Wolff began pushing for a new ballpark for the Bulls in 1988 in order to attract a class-AAA club, but plans for the stadium were pushed back until the new stadium opened in downtown Durham in 1995. Wolff never saw the completion of the new stadium as an owner, as the Bulls were sold in 1991 to Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Company. Capitol president Jim Goodmon initially proposed building the new stadium near Raleigh-Durham International Airport, but after city leaders in Durham offered to renovate the old ballpark or help build a new stadium, the current downtown Durham site was secured.

On July 17, 1992, the Bulls unveiled their new mascot, Wool E. Bull, a moniker submitted by Durham resident Jim Vicker out of a pool of 500, inspired by the otherwise unrelated novelty song oldie, "Wooly Bully". The "E" in his name supposedly stands for "education." The next June, the Bulls retired the number 18 belonging to Joe Morgan, the only Hall of Famer ever to play for the Bulls, who was a member of the 1963 club. Morgan's number remains the only one ever retired by the club, and he attended the ceremony in which his number was retired. The Bulls also retained the snorting Bull used in the movie Bull Durham. The original bull used in the movie and at Durham Athletic Park can be seen hanging on the wall of the concourse at the Bulls' new stadium, Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

The new stadium does have a newly built snorting Bull similar to the original. Whenever a Bulls player hits a home run the bull's eyes light up, its tails moves up and down and it snorts steam out of its nose. Whenever a player hits the bull with a home run that player wins a steak dinner at a local restaurant. A fan in the audience during the game will also win a free steak dinner.

The 1997 season, during which the Bulls were an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, marked their last year in the class-A Carolina League; that franchise spent 1998 in Danville, Virginia as the Danville 97s before moving to their current home of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1999 as the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. In 1998 Wolff's dream of attracting a AAA club came true when the Bulls became the AAA affiliate of the newly-formed Tampa Bay Devil Rays, their parent club ever since, and began play in the International League (IL). That year saw the Bulls play their first game outside the United States when they played road games against the Ottawa Lynx, though it would be another year before they recorded their first win in Canada. The 2001 season saw the Bulls set single-game {10,916 on July 23) and full-season (505,319 set on September 1) attendance records. Then, on September 12, 2002, the Bulls won their first IL championship, defeating the Buffalo Bisons 2-0 for the Governors' Cup. 364 days later, the team became the first in the 119-year history of the championship to sweep back-to-back final playoff series, defeating the Pawtucket Red Sox.


Tampa Bay Devil Rays Franchise
AAA AA A Rookie
Durham Bulls Montgomery Biscuits
 Vero Beach Devil Rays
Columbus Catfish
Hudson Valley Renegades
Princeton Devil Rays

[edit] Titles/Notable Finishes

North Carolina State League

  • 1917 - In first place (24-12) when league ceased play due to World War I

Piedmont League

  • 1922 - Won second half of the season (69-58 overall) and defeated the High Point Furniture Makers in the play-off to take the title
  • 1924 - Won pennant with a 74-46 record
  • 1925 - Won first half of the season (68-58 overall) and defeated the Winston-Salem Twins in the playoff to take the title
  • 1926 - Won second half of the season (73-71 overall) but lost to the Greensboro Patriots in the playoff
  • 1929 - Won pennant with an 85-51 record
  • 1930 - Finished second (71-68), defeated the first-place Henderson Gamecocks in a play-off
  • 1936 - Finished second (79-63), lost to the first-place Norfolk Tars in the play-offs
  • 1939 - Finished second (75-65), lost to the Rocky Mount Red Sox in the play-offs
  • 1940 - Finished fourth (73-62) but defeated the [[Richmond Colts and Rocky Mount Red Sox to take play-off title
  • 1941 - Won pennant (84-53), defeated the Norfolk Tars and the Greensboro Patriots to take play-off title

Carolina League

  • 1946 - Finished third (80-62), lost to the Raleigh Capitals in the play-off finals
  • 1951 - Finished first (84-56), lost to the Reidsville Luckies in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1952 - Finished second (76-59), lost to the Reidsville Luckies in the play-off finals
  • 1954 - Finished fourth (70-68), lost to the Fayetteville Highlanders in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1955 - Finished fourth (69-69), lost to the High Point-Thomasville Hi-Toms in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1956 - Finished second (84-69), lost to the Danville Leafs in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1957 - Won first half of the season (79-61 overall) and defeated the High Point-Thomasville Hi-Toms in the playoff to take the title
  • 1959 - Finished third (70-60), lost to the Wilson Tobs in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1962 - Finished first (89-51), lost to the Kinston Eagles in the play-off finals
  • 1963 - Finished second in the West Division (78-65), lost to the Greensboro Yankees in the first round of the play-offs
  • 1965 - Finished first in the West Division (83-60), lost to the Portsmouth Tides in the play-off finals
  • 1967 - Finished first in the West Division (74-64), defeated the Portmouth Tides in the play-off finals
  • 1968 - Finished first in the East Division (83-56), lost to the High Point-Thomasville Hi-Toms in the play-off finals
  • 1969 - Finished second in the East Division (79-62), defeated the Burlington Senators in the play-off finals
  • 1980 - Finished first in the NC Division (84-56), lost to the Peninsula Pilots in the play-off
  • 1982 - Finished second in the South Division (80-56), lost to the Alexandria Dukes in the play-off finals
  • 1989 - Finished first in the South Division (84-54), lost to the Prince William Cannons in the play-off finals
  • 1994 - Won second half of season in the South Division (66-70 overall), lost to the Winston-Salem Spirits in the play-offs

(note: the team played as the Raleigh-Durham Mets in 1968 and the Raleigh-Durham Phillies in 1969)


International League

The Bulls have twice won the Governors' Cup, the championship of the IL, and played in the championship series four times.

[edit] Former Bulls

The most notable baseball player to have once played for the Bulls is Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. Morgan spent part of the 1963 season with the Bulls before earning a promotion to the Houston Colt 45s (Houston Astros). His number 18 was retired by the team on August 9, 2002, during a postgame ceremony which he attended. Danny Gans, a famous Las Vegas entertainer, once played for the Bulls and played the third baseman in Bull Durham before suffering a career ending injury.

Other famous Bulls who are currently or were once in the majors include:

Current Devil Rays who were once Bulls:

[edit] External links

International League
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