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CORRECTION
The Sept. 25 editorial "Bulls win" overlooked a Durham Bulls postseason series victory. After beating the Louisville Bats, the Bulls swept the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in three games, and that, not the victory over the Bats, won them the Governor's Cup.
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Over in Durham, they're selling championship T-shirts -- in September. Although college sports seasons are just getting under way, and Duke basketball has yet to fire up its first three-pointer, the Durham Bulls are the new champions of the Triple-A leagues, and, arguably, of all minor league baseball. Hats off to the Bulls!
The storied -- or movied -- franchise has long been a box office hit. Now there will be a national championship banner to hoist at handsome Durham Bulls Athletic Park, which opened in 1995, several years after the filming of "Bull Durham."
This summer's edition of the Bulls, Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, wasn't the strongest team in the minor leagues, but they won their division of the International League and then, in a five-game playoff series, edged Louisville to take the Governor's Cup and the league championship. That was the third time in eight years that the Bulls had done so. Then it was on to a one-game Triple A championship against the Memphis Redbirds, played in Oklahoma City.
The nationally televised game was a 5-4 cliff-hanger that the Bulls finally won (after two wild pitches by two different pitchers) when pinch-runner Rashad Eldridge crossed the plate in the bottom of the 11th inning. Because they play on the top rung of the 15-league, 176-club minor league universe, the Triple-A Bulls can legitimately claim to be the best minor league team around.
The Oklahoma City crowd got its money's worth, as did the 6,900 or so Durham-area fans who turned out, on average, for Bulls games this season. Minor league attendance slowed a bit this year in the downturn, but not much, and both the Bulls and the Double-A Carolina Mudcats, who play in Zebulon, continue to offer single-digit ticket prices and outstanding family entertainment.
Good baseball too -- you could look it up.
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