On the morning of Monday, February 9th, the Hub City Spartanburgers held a press launch at Duncan Park Stadium for their upcoming Pastimes series of alternate identity promotions which will be a headline feature of the 2026 baseball season at Fifth Third Park. Each of the six games which make up the series will commemorate a different era or classification of hardball played at the old ballpark over the last 100 years. Spartanburgers General Manager Tyson Jeffers, Spartanburg Mayor Jerome Rice, Negro Leagues historian Luther Norman, and I were invited to make brief remarks at the event. Mine follow below.
Spartanburg Pastimes
Dr. Edwin C. Epps•February 20, 2026•5 min read•26 views
On the morning of Monday, February 9th, the Hub City Spartanburgers held a press launch at Duncan Park Stadium for their upcoming Pastimes series of alternate identity promotions which will be a headline feature of the 2026 baseball season at Fifth Third Park. Each of the six games which make up the series will commemorate a different era or classification of hardball played at the old ballpark over the last 100 years. Spartanburgers General Manager Tyson Jeffers, Spartanburg Mayor Jerome Rice, Negro Leagues historian Luther Norman, and I were invited to make brief remarks at the event. Mine follow below.
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Good morning! As I look out over this gathering this morning, I count a crowd that is larger than some of those that came to games here in the 1980s or after the departure of the Phillies in 1994. Those were sad days, and many feared for the future of the stadium then. It had been a long time since 21,000 fans attended the final American Legion Little World Series game here in 1936; and since Charles Lindbergh flew over the stadium when the City closed the schools on October 12, 1927, so that students and their teachers could come with the rest of the City to witness the triumphant appearance of a real live world class hero; or since Pat Williams and the Phillies set a Class A attendance record in 1966.
As the ballpark aged and new parks with more bells and whistles began to appear nearby—including stadiums built locally at Wofford and at USC Spartanburg—attendance declined, and finally it became almost impossible to attract a team of any kind to the historic structure on the Southside. Things began to change and hopes were raised after the 2008 agreement between the City of Spartanburg and Spartanburg County School District Seven promised a reinvestment in the worth of the stadium for future generations, and today some of the features of this facility are state of the art for a town the size of Spartanburg (even though they are largely hidden under the grandstand!). Then, when the Hub City Spartanburgers opened their season downtown last spring, it became apparent pretty early on that the new team, its owners, and management genuinely valued the legacy of the teams that had played in the Sparkle City before and that the Texas Rangers franchise planned to honor the predecessors in a conspicuous and ongoing way.
Since then the Spartanburgers have worked hard to learn the history of Spartanburg baseball and to plan a series of promotions to display that history at Fifth Third Park and to contribute to the preservation of that history. The team worked with the Friends of Duncan Park, Todd Stephens and Brad Steinecke and the Headquarters Library, John Barron and his team at American Legion Post 28, Luther Norman, and City government in order to demonstrate to local citizens that they did in fact appreciate the stories of the old grandstand and its home teams. This morning’s program is evidence of the fruits of that effort and the beginning of new traditions that will help teach our children about this important part of their history—and incidentally will also help some of our elders to remember some great times in their own youth and create new memories for fans in the future.
So thanks for coming this morning, and please come back to watch the play of the Spartan High Vikings, the Post 28 Juniors and Mustangs, the Spartanburg Mariners of the independent Palmetto League, the youth of the Hillbrook Baseball teams on the beautifully renovated fields out beyond right field, and others. This diamond still shines in the Sparkle City.
Complete information about Pastimes can be found at The Hub City Spartanburgers website: https://www.milb.com/hub-city/news/pastimes-identity-release. I will be personally interested in the Duncan Park replica night of course, and I am also especially looking forward to the Pat Williams memorial night. Pat is a legend here in Spartanburg and in a number of NBA arenas around the country, and he graciously gave me two wonderful hours of his precious time in his Orlando Magic office when I was researching my book about Duncan Park. It saddens me that he has left us and will not be here for his night.
The author of this blog with Luther Norman (c) and softball legend Theodore “Strawberry” Williams (r) and two friends at the Pastimes launch
Timeline of the history of baseball in Spartanburg created by the Hub City Spartanburgers and displayed above the wall at home plate in Duncan Park Stadium. The Spartanburgers will install a series of historic displays at their own Fifth Third Park during this season’s games.
And at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany at 121 Ernest L. Collins Avenue in downtown Spartanburg, the after school reading program currently features the history of Negro League baseball in the Hub City. The reading program is sponsored by the Youth Sports Bureau, and its current Black baseball emphasis constitutes a high-interest initiative designed to illustrate the importance of this aspect of the City of Spartanburg’s Black community, especially during the era of segregation. The program features a curriculum based upon a specialized book collection, an exhibition of vintage baseball artifacts and memorabilia, and guest speakers expert in telling the story of Black baseball in Spartanburg. Developed in conjunction with the Spartanburg County Public Library, the Spartanburg County Foundation, the City of Spartanburg Parks and Recreation Department, and the Hub City Writers Project, the after school reading program provides constructive activities for students who might have little else to do during after school hours.
The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany is the sole surviving structure of the formerly thriving Southside Black business community destroyed by urban “renewal” during the early 1970s. The story of this City district is told and preserved in the Hub City Press book South of Main (Spartanburg, 2005) by Brenda Lee Pryce and Beatrice Hill, which won the 2006 Independent Publisher Book Award for the best multicultural nonfiction title by an independent press in North America. The volume should be available at your local public library and at the Hub City Bookshop on Morgan Square downtown.
Images from the reading program display at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany on Collins Avenue in Spartanburg
Luther welcomes visitors to his after school program at the Church of the Epiphany, but please contact him first at youthsportsbureau@yahoo.com. He also sponsors clinics and tournaments for youth baseball at Duncan Park and elsewhere in the City of Spartanburg parks system and always welcomes donations of equipment, boxes of baseballs (which are more expensive than you might guess!), and cash.
Dr. Edwin C. Epps
Author
Dr. Edwin C. Epps is a retired educator with more than forty years' experience in public school classrooms... He is the author of Literary South Carolina (Hub City Press, 2004) and a proud member of Phi Beta Kappa who believes in the value of the humanities in a rapidly changing world.
Beginning this week the Spartanburg County Headquarters Library will host “100 Years of Duncan Park Stadium,” a new exhibition curated by Brad Steinecke, the Assistant Director of Local History in the Kennedy Room. This 19-panel display features a couple of cases containing memorabilia and ephemera from the Library’s archive of items commemorating the history of this grand old stadium. The exhibition is located on the lower level of the Library in the AT&T Exhibition Gallery and will be on display January 20—March 4, 2026.
Did he make a stop in the Hub City on his way to The Show? Did the man who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record and became the greatest Braves player of all time set foot on the Sparkle City diamond? As is true of many issues in pre-integration Black baseball, the answer to this question is a probably reliable “Yes!” but it’s hard to provide the documentation to prove that it is so.
Satchel Paige was one of the greatest showmen ever to play baseball. He is also considered THE very best pitcher of them all by many fans. He played in the Negro Leagues and MLB. In July 1965 he pitched three innings against the Class A Spartanburg Phillies at Historic Duncan Park Stadium.
