Game 2 of my weekend in North Carolina was spent at one of the Cities I’ve always wanted to see. The movie Bull Durham was known for being one of the biggest impacts on the minor league sports industry, and I finally got the opportunity to see where it was filmed.
Since I was staying in Charlotte, NC, my friend Mitch and I had a two hour drive ahead of us, and the weather wasn’t looking very good for the entire weekend. However, things ended up working out perfect! We were originally planning to go to the Charlotte Knights game since the weather looked bad for the Durham game, but we decided to try to make it to Durham after we saw the hourly forecast. With traffic and weather slowing things down along the way, we ended up arriving later than planned. However, that ended up working out in our favor. A rain delay stopped the game for about an hour, and we decided to sacrifice a couple innings of the game to check out the old Durham Bulls stadium, which is where the movie Bull Durham was filmed!
As some of you may know, I absolutely love older stadiums, and I would’ve loved to catch a game at this stadium. It’s still being used as a college baseball stadium, along with numerous events. It’s my goal to make it to even more historic stadiums, and share them with everyone. The Bulls moved out of their old stadium after the 1994 season. In 1998, they moved up to the AAA level. One of the main reasons for needing a new stadium was because of how high Durham’s attendance was after the movie was made. It’s amazing how impactful Kevin Costner baseball movies have been over the years for the sport.
After checking out the old stadium, we drove about five minutes to the game, and found a parking garage. This stadium does require some walking, as their main entrance and box office are on the opposite side. However, there is a drop off area at the entrance. This ended up being a close game, and had a lot of great moments, even after being late. One of those moments was when the bull lit up, after a home run.
There are a lot of great features in this stadium, along with big team store. I love that they have Jackie’s Landing which honors Jackie Robinson. As you can see in the video, the left field wall is only 303 ft, and 20 ft high, which they call the blue monster. I also like how they added the video board on the wall. The original bull sign from the movie is now in storage, according to an article, and is not the one that’s above the blue monster today. After the Bulls were threatening a few times in the game, the Redbirds ended up holding on to their lead, and winning the game 3-2.
If you’re able to spend an entire day in the Durham area, I highly recommend it. While it was a great trip from Charlotte, we realized that we needed an entire day to check everything out. There are numerous places from the movie to see, and a few places around the ballpark to go to before the game. One of those places overlooks the left field wall. I’m hoping to come back to Durham with some extra time, and share some of those sights. It was a very successful weekend in North Carolina, and I can’t wait to share more places this season. I’m very excited for my next game will be in Washington DC, and I’ll also be sharing a few posts outside of baseball. As always, I’ll share all of my photos below from Durham. Make sure to use the code APGAMING at seatgeek.com for $20 off your first SeatGeek order!
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