A dapper DAP to serve broader purpose

The surrounding auction houses have largely vanished, along with the sickly sweet smell of bright leaf tobacco that characteristically permeated the humid air for months on end.

Gone, too, are the national headquarters of Minor League Baseball, moved long ago from downtown Durham.

But Durham Athletic Park endures. The modest, 5,000-seat ballfield opened for business in 1938 and survived the ups and downs of the game's popularity. Then, in 1988 the “DAP” gained iconic status as a nostalgic, central presence in Ron Shelton’s much-admired film, “Bull Durham.”

The city celebrates the 20th anniversary of the movie’s release on Wednesday. The paean to bush league ball – starring Kevin Costner as Crash Davis, Susan Sarandon as Annie Savoy, and Tim Robbins as Nuke LaLoosh – is generally considered among the great sports films.

The success of the movie, and the reverence shown the DAP, currently celebrating its 70th birthday, marked “probably the first time that Durham residents and aficionados realized that what was valued here had appeal with people across the world,” said Reyn Bowman, president and CEO of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Next comes restoration of the ballpark, also to be launched on Wednesday, and a push to turn the facility into a hub of much-needed progress, as much for baseball itself as for downtown Durham’s economic well-being.

Revival cannot come too soon for the DAP. As recently as three weeks ago, the place looked more seedy than celebrated, with phone books moldering in plastic bags in the main concourse, weeds pocking the infield, and boarded up windows in bathrooms and locker rooms.

The city has committed $5 million to renovate the nation’s most famous minor league field, relegated to twilight status since 1995, when the Durham Bulls went Triple A and moved to a new facility closer to the freeway that links to I-40 and I-85. The old ballpark will continue to host annual beer and music festivals, and North Carolina Central University, a state school of 8,500 students, will play its home baseball games there starting next spring.

Come the 2009 baseball season, Durham Athletic Park also will serve a broader purpose. The city has agreed to allow Minor League Baseball Management LLC to run the ballpark as an academy and “laboratory,” said John Cook, executive director of business operations for Minor League Baseball. The farm system needed its own farm system, so to speak.

The beneficiaries will be 160 franchises nationwide, and another 80 clubs in Canada and Latin America.

“I’m the player to be named later.” Crash Davis, Bull Durham

When Durham voters passed a $4 million bond in 2005 to renovate Durham Athletic Park, the full range of users was uncertain.

Two years earlier, a report found that building code violations and “failing infrastructure” due to “deferred maintenance” required upgrading the grandstand, seating bowl, and less visible areas. Among the necessary improvements was the addition of 34 toilets. “When you’d go to use the facilities, it was an embarrassment,” said Eugene Brown, a city council member and rehab supporter.

The ballpark “has obviously been neglected, but it actually had good bones and good structure,” said Ken Reiter, development director for Stuever Bros. Eccels & Rouse (SBER), chosen to handle the renovations. “Given all its history and importance, it’s amazing the city hasn’t paid more attention to it. But you can say that about a lot of things.”

SBER is familiar with urban neglect, having cut its teeth on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The firm is presently engaged in a multi-year, multimillion dollar upgrade of Boston’s Fenway Park, and on updating brick tobacco warehouses for residential development in Durham’s American Tobacco district, beside the new ballpark.

Durham residents proved eager to save the DAP, which Brown described as “a historic monument.” An advisory panel representing a wide range of stakeholders recommended all work be done “with sensitivity to the Durham Athletic Park’s celebrated history and character.” That meant, among other things, substituting a state-of-the-art grass field for a proposed artificial playing surface.

Early users figured to be N.C. Central, risen to Division I status in collegiate athletics, and the city’s own recreational programs. Then officials from Minor League Baseball came calling during the fall of 2006.

“They really approached us,” said Durham mayor Bill Bell. “They said on more than one occasion they were strictly looking at Durham. The culture, the city, the fact the Durham Bulls are here and are highly successful, the whole history of the Durham Athletic Park itself.”

Cook, the Minor League executive, said at first his organization investigated the possibilities of working with Durham “more as a courtesy than anything.” But once he and his associates looked around, “the wheels got to turning, if you will.”

“Baseball may be a religion full of magic, cosmic truth, and the fundamental ontological riddles of our time. But it’s also a job.” Annie Savoy, Bull Durham

The parties launced serious discussions at baseball’s 2006 winter meetings. Bell was impressed with the resources and reach of the organization interested in doing business in the Bull City. Minor League executives saw the famous, refurbished ballpark as a “showpiece” and “a great place to train people to work in Minor League Baseball,” Cook said.

So, the facility will be used to instruct and develop umpires, grounds keepers, broadcasters, marketers, and concessions and facilities managers -- “really the whole gamut that goes on in Minor League Baseball,” Cook said.

N.C. Central’s participation proved an added attraction for Minor League officials, who are discussing an arrangement with the historically black school whereby its students can intern at the DAP in all aspects of the game, from field to stands to front office. That would help organized baseball address a serious deficiency in recruitment of African-Americans, Cook noted. “There definitely is a lack.”

"A good friend of mine used to say this is a very simple game. You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains. Think about that for awhile." Nuke LaLoosh, Bull Durham

Partnering with Minor League Baseball at Durham Athletic Park required spending another $1 million to renovate the broadcast booth, dugouts, offices, and manually-operated scoreboard, among other things. The additional funds were approved in August 2007 by the city council. A renewable three-year deal made Minor League Baseball the operator of the DAP, responsible for maintenance.

“I think it’s a coup for Durham,” councilmember Brown said. Reiter, from SBER, said the resuscitated DAP is apt to spawn neighboring development, good news for a city he called a “gritty” but “forgotten” corner of the region.

Durham and the minors also propose building a 75,000-square-foot “Minor League Baseball Museum and Fan Experience,” perhaps in old commercial buildings adjoining the DAP.

To assist in funding what could be a $55 million project, local leaders hope to have a prepared meal tax on the ballot in November for voter approval. Such a measure, used in Wake County and elsewhere to fund civic endeavors, could generate $6 million annually.

Museum boosters also seek federal, state, and private backing. Marc Basnight, the state Senate leader, discouraged expectations of assistance during a January meeting with Durham leaders. Of course Basnight readily finds monies to benefit projects in his coastal district.

Besides, from Raleigh’s RBC Center to Greensboro’s proposed ACC museum to Charlotte’s new NASCAR museum, the state has recently assisted other communities in harnessing sports for economic development purposes. Surely a focus on minor league ball, a major part of North Carolina’s heritage and economy, merits similar consideration.