That Old Feeling

Historic Grainger Stadium ready to welcome fans on opening day in Kinston, N.C.

From the moment you pull into the vast parking lot and look up at Grainger Stadium in Kinston, N.C., you know you’ve arrived in a special place. Lots of brick and metal beams come together in a way that evokes memories of a time gone by, a time when our summer pastimes involved boardwalks, wooden roller coasters and the crisp crack of a baseball bat.

Inside, new structures blend with the old to give the stadium an up-to-date look while maintaining a solid foot in its historic past. It’s almost as if someone designed a brand new stadium and did a fantastic job of making it look old.

Comfortable stadium seating in an old-fashioned setting .

Grainger Stadium in Kinston, N.C., home of the Single A Down East Wood Ducks, is one of the oldest ballparks in Minor League Baseball. It opened in 1949, a year before I was born, to provide a new home field for the Kinston Eagles of the Coastal Plains League.

Professional baseball in Kinston goes back more than a century, but it really began to take hold in the mid-1920s with the independent Eagles. There were a few years of no baseball during the Great Depression until the Eagles joined the Coastal Plains League in 1935. A succession of teams then called Kinston home until the CPL folded in the 1950s. Other teams came and went as part of the Carolina League into the 1970s and 1980s. A long association with the Cleveland Indians lasted from 1986 until 2011, when the Kinston Indians moved to Zebulon, N.C., and became the Carolina Mudcats.

Dewd, the mascot, gets his Ducks in a row for the opening day pre-game festivities.

Baseball returned to Grainger Stadium in 2017, when the Texas Rangers established the Down East Wood Ducks as a new team in the Carolina League. Other major league teams that have had minor league affiliates in Kinston throughout Grainger Stadium’s history were the Red Sox, Tigers, Pirates (twice), Senators (before they became the Twins), Braves, Yankees, Expos, and Blue Jays.

The crowd was good for the Single A opening night game between the Wood Ducks and the visiting Kannapolis Cannon Ballers. The electronic scoreboard used their nicknames, Ballers and Woodies, as did the players’ uniforms.

I got the feeling that the crowd is usually a good one here, with generations of baseball under their belts. One fan told me his son is the team’s general manager. Some of the liveliest fans were the many kids who cheered for their Woodies throughout the entire game, and who agonized when things didn’t go their way. The fans were friendly too and so were the stadium staff. They went out of their way to make me feel welcome at their ballpark.

The Taters are hardly visible under a pile of goodness in the Five Tool Tots.

It’s easy to get around the stadium with a broad walkway between the upper and lower seats in the main grandstand. Concessions are located on the first and third baselines, within view of the playing field. I was able to join the crowd singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while I waited to get my Five Tool Tots in the middle of the seventh inning. It wasn’t just the snack-sized helping I expected. There were enough Tater Tots smothered with pork, cheese and lettuce to feed two people. Jalapeños and sour cream came on the side. I was able to sit at a picnic tables by right field and watch the game while I ate.

I love these older ballparks and Grainger Stadiums, with its well-executed updates, is one of the best. I have now been to seven of the 11 oldest minor league ballparks. Benjamin Hill, who’s been to more ballparks than anybody, compiled a list of them a couple of years ago for milb.com. You can see what he had to say by clicking here.

The countdown continues.

And here’s what I wrote after I went to these old ballparks for the first time. I’ve added the year each opened and the current home teams.

Jackie Robinson Park, 1914, Daytona Tortugas

Excite Ballpark, 1942, San Jose Giants

Valley Strong Ballpark, 1946, Visalia Rawhide

First Energy Stadium,1951, Reading Fightin’ Phils

I’ve also been to these two ballparks, but I haven’t written about them yet: 

LECOM Park, 1923, Bradenton Marauders: I went to a spring training game here in March 2020. It was one of the last baseball games played before everything was shut down by the covid-19 pandemic. The ballpark is 100 years old. Maybe I’ll go back for a minor league game this summer and write about it then.

McCormick Field, 1924, Asheville Tourists: This was one of my stops on an early road trip in 2022. Some day I’ll catch up on this stadium and the many others that I never wrote about last year.

I can’t wait to see these other oldies-but-goodies, maybe the first two this year:

Modern Woodmen Park, 1931, Quad Cities River Bandits (Iowa) 

Bank of the James Stadium, 1940, Lynchburg Hillcats

Funko Field, 1947, Everett AquaSox

Nat Bailey Stadium, 1951, Vancouver Canadians

The scoreboard and video screen were easy to read from almost everywhere
in the ballpark.That clock on top was a little bit off.

The Cannon Ballers scored first in the game for a 2-0 lead, but the Woodies tied it up and were ahead 3-2 after 6 innings. Tim Elko’s 3-run homer in the seventh put Kannapolis ahead for good, spoiling the home opener for the Woodies and their fans.

Baseball’s new “speedy” rules seemed to be working in Kinston. The final score was Kannapolis 5, Down East 4, with the two teams combining for 15 hits. Even with plenty of offense, the game was over in a short 2 hours and 13 minutes.

The little team store was sell-stocked for the new season, but there was
only one choicewhen it came to  collectible pins. Lucky for me, it was the right one.