Roy was so interested in the history of Duncan Park that he decided he would like to come to Spartanburg to see it. He wanted the full treatment, though, so he made some preparations: He called Lauren Friedrich at the Spartanburg County Historical Association and Kim Brown at the City of Spartanburg and the staff of the Kennedy Room at our Public Library and the Front Office of our Spartanburgers. It wasn’t long before he had my telephone number too.

Roy and I talked and then I got to work. With the help of more people than I can name here we put together a schedule that included a personal tour of Duncan Park, two games at Fifth Third Park, lunch at Cribb’s Restaurant downtown (where, as Roy remembered, “A couple of local dignitaries stopped by to say hello”), a visit to the Kennedy Room, and an introduction to some of Luther’s Spartanburg Sluggers memorabilia. By the end of his time in the Hub City, Roy and I were both pretty tired. 

Roy’s trip was a success. In a post-visit email from the City of Brotherly Love, he reported that he was “thoroughly impressed with what I saw in Spartanburg. Many thanks to all those that helped.” The self-proclaimed ambassador from the home of Ben Franklin returned to his own abode with a “suitcase… filled with mementos, and my mind was full of great memories.” So were the minds of his hosts here; a good time was had by all. Your author even learned a little about the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, Roy’s hometown MiLB team.


A second recent instance of the attraction of the past of Duncan Park Stadium extended into the PRESENT occurred like this:

Not long before the Friends of Duncan Park’s adventure with Roy Cox I received an email from another friend asking if I’d be interested in talking to a group at the Summit Hills retirement community on the northeastern edge of the city. I wasn’t sure: a bunch of old people?! Then I realized that I myself am no spring chicken, so I cast aside my reservations.

Summit Hills is an active and engaged community, and among their educational programs over the past several months had been watching a series of South Carolina Educational television episodes from a series titled Carolina Stories. One of the programs was “Baseball in the Upstate,” but at the conclusion of this viewing, Summit Hills resident Rod Harley realized that there had been no coverage of Duncan Park Stadium, the historic old ballpark which is the very subject of this blog. Rod knew the seriousness of this omission, and he also knew about my book Duncan Park: Stories of a Classic American Ballpark (Hub City Press, 2023). The light bulb in Rod’s brain switched on: maybe he could get me to come to Summit Hills to right this wrong. Summit Hills has a Social Director and three Lifestyle Advisors, so Rod navigated the staff directory and secured the required approval,  then called me. 

I talk with various groups from time to time. In size they range from elementary and high school classrooms to individuals stopping to chat with me along the concourse at Fifth Third Park, from members of local Optimist Clubs to small audiences of donors and enthusiasts at Duncan Park itself, and from an auditorium full of patrons of our Public Library at my book launch in the Barrett Room in 2023 to individual visitors to my display table on the lawn at the entrance to Duncan Park on Park Drive and a class of Lifelong Learners at Wofford College. I was eager to chat with a  diverse group of well educated individuals who had both a variety of life experiences and an obvious love of local history and baseball. I said yes to the Summit Hills invitation.

The occasion itself was relaxed, friendly, and inviting. Most residents of Summit Hills are native Spartans or at least Southerners although a few come from above the Mason-Dixon line or beyond the Mississippi.

One more indication of local and in fact national interest in the future of Duncan Park Stadium is two days away as I write this blog post. On Wednesday, September 23rd, the Friends of Duncan Park will sponsor an excursion to our fair city from Carrollton, Texas, near Dallas, by well-known Negro Leagues researcher, benefactor, and historical stadium consultant Dr. Layton Revel.

Spartanburg’s own Luther Norman and I have known Dr. Revel for a number of years as one of the most respected authorities in the country on Negro Leagues baseball as well as an experienced designer and consultant on the construction, utilization, and funding of historic stadiums and museums. He has worked with committees and boards at Rickwood Field and the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham and also multiple baseball facilities in Texas and Tennessee. He founded the Center for Negro League Baseball Research, and his work was influential in MLB’s decision to award pensions to former Negro League players. He has interviewed more than 1,500 former Negro League players, and his archival collection contains as many signed baseballs. Most of what is displayed at the Negro Southern League Museum is from his collection, and both MLB and SABR have depended upon and profited from his research.

Luther has known Dr. Revel for decades, and I have known him for a dozen years since early in my research process for my book. The Friends have talked with him in a conference call and also met him on ZOOM, but he and we both wanted to have a personal meeting as well, especially at Duncan Park. The doctor has wanted to see our stadium for a good while,  and we wanted him to come to see us as we begin to plan seriously for its future. We were heartened back in 2006 when Lenny Mathis organized the original Friends and managed to forestall the wrecking ball, and we were all further encouraged by the Letter of Agreement between the City and School District Seven two years later. Even twenty years ago, though, we began looking for a long range plan and dependable ongoing funding via an endowment and grants.

Stable maintenance and funding have been problems for every old baseball stadium in the U.S., and it was clear that the best course for us was not to depend completely and forever upon the vagaries of income from taxation and bond issues. It was important that we try to find a way to make the facility as nearly as possible self-sufficient, particularly in terms of ongoing  operations and also in order to generate funding for historical displays, preservation, and office/shop space to be able to have an on-site presence to accommodate visitors to our site and offer up some collectible merch.

The City and School District Seven agreed with the Friends that a visit by Dr. Revel would be a good thing, so we began the process. We met with others who had skin in this game: P. A. L. Spartanburg, the Spartanburg County Public Library, the Hub City Spartanburgers MiLB team, the Youth Sports Bureau, McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, and various audiences at civic clubs, churches, schools, and other institutions. It was a slow process, and medical interruptions of one kind and another played into our plans, but we finally assembled the folks we needed, a time to meet, a cool place to gather together (the conference room of Fifth Third Park), and the beginnings of an idea of what we wanted to do at this time and in this place.

The core of Dr. Revel’s visit with the Friends was the schedule for Thursday, September 24th. The day began with a tour of Duncan Park Stadium, facilitated by the City of Spartanburg Department of Parks, Recreation, and Special Events. This event was focused on concerns identified as primary by both the Friends and Dr. Revel, both of whom had prepared a list of topics for discussion in preliminary conversations. Following lunch the group assembled again, this time in the Conference room of the Hub City Spartanburgers. Planned as an extended roundtable workshop, this session lasted two hours with participants chosen by their organizations as particularly knowledgeable of the condition, contributions, and possibilities of the ballpark facility. The working dialogue was succeeded by a tour of the Spartanburgers stadium, a still new state-of-the-art facility which had demonstrated impressive success in design, attendance, promotions, fan appreciation and devotion, financial success, and community support during its first two years of existence.

Although there are obvious differences between a vintage ballpark that is one of the oldest in the nation and a spanking new gem of a facility boasting the best that modern engineering is capable of, the committee hoped that a comprehensive introduction to the innovative downtown structure would suggest potential steps to take with the grand old traditional stadium five minutes down the road.

The next post on the Beautiful Duncan Park blog will present the deliberations, analysis, and recommendations of this day-long process. Readers of this blog are invited to please feel free to comment with your own reactions and suggestions regarding the future of Duncan Park Stadium.