SUMMER 2017 The Buies of Summer Professional baseball in its purest form PHOTO BY LYDIA HUTH PHOTO BY LYDIA 32 SUMMER 2017 TAKE IT IN. SMELL THE PEANUTS. THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER SUMMER LIKE THESE TWO. MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU CAMPBELL MAGAZINE 33 FOR THE NEXT When it is all said and done, Buies Creek, Campbell University and Jim Perry Stadium TWO YEARS, will have hosted roughly 130 days and nights of pro baseball in its purest form. Families eating CAMPBELL hot dogs and groups of local Little Leaguers UNIVERSITY chasing foul balls on warm summer evenings. Fans getting an up-close (really up-close) look IS HOME TO A at future stars like Kyle Tucker, Jason Martin, PROFESSIONAL Forrest Whitley and Franklin Perez. Take it in. Smell the peanuts. BASEBALL lot happens in the on-deck circle. It’s where a hitter takes practice swings before his turn There will never be another summer like TEAM. STRANGE these two. at the plate. It’s where he eyes the pitcher’s AS IT SOUNDS, mechanics and speed up close — a short window Ato get his timing down pat. Waiting in the wings The right fit. THE ASTROS before stepping on the main stage, the circle allows him a chance to take in his surroundings Even in the world of Minor League Baseball HAVE FOUND and mentally prepare for the spotlight. — where rural America, ballparks built near cornfields and intimate, familiar crowds are A PERFECT The Buies Creek Astros are in the on-deck attributes woven into the fibers of the game — (TEMPORARY) circle. Buies Creek is small. And when they take the field in April 2019 in It’s not technically the smallest — it’s HOME IN BUIES their brand new, $33 million-dollar stadium in actually 12 times larger than Sauget, Illinois CREEK. front of 5,000-plus fans, they’ll no longer have (population 250), home of the Gateway Creek in their name. They'll be the Fayetteville Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League. BY BILLY LIGGETT Fatbacks. Or the Fly Traps. Or the Jumpers But Sauget is 10 miles from the thriving or Wood Dogs or Woodpeckers. Whatever metropolis of St. Louis, Missouri. The Gateway the name and the accompanying mascot, the Arch can be seen from its ballpark. team will be the hottest ticket in the Carolina In other words, Buies Creek is no Sauget. League. They will have stepped up to the plate. The tallest structure seen from its ballpark By then, the Buies Creek Astros will be a is Kivett Hall, the centerpiece of Campbell memory. A Wikipedia entry. The answer University. You have to drive 40 miles north or to a tough baseball trivia question. A rare south to find anything resembling a city. Buies collectible hat or jersey on Ebay. Creek doesn’t have a stoplight. It’s not even technically a town (it’s a “census-designated But that’s 20 months away. place,” by definition). For now, these are an important two years Yet there it was on Nov. 17, 2016, site for the for the Houston Astros, an organization that kind of announcement many towns and cities has climbed from the cellar of the American would give their Main Streets for. There stood League to the top of the standings. And thanks Reid Ryan — son of Hall of Fame pitching to its farm system, they look like a team built to legend Nolan Ryan and president of the stay at the top. Houston Astros — announcing the arrival of These two years are important to this professional baseball. community, too. The Buies Creek Astros. 34 SUMMER 2017 CAROLINA LEAGUE The Buies Creek Astros belong to the Carolina League, an Advanced-A Minor League Baseball affiliation formed in 1945, just after World War II. Many famous Major Leaguers have started their careers in the league, including Johnny Bench, Wade Boggs, Barry Bonds, Rod Carew, Dwight Gooden, Chipper Jones, Joe Morgan, Zack Greinke, Andruw Jones, Darryl Strawberry, Bernie Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. The 1988 film “Bull Durham” — starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins — featured the Durham Bulls, who were at the time members of the Carolina League. The current league consists of 10 teams (Major League affiliate in parenthesis): NORTHERN DIVISION • Frederick Keys (Baltimore) • Lynchburg Hillcats (Cleveland) • Potomac Nationals (Washington) • Salem Red Sox (Boston) • Wilmington Blue Rocks (Kansas City) SOUTHERN DIVISION • Buies Creek Astros (Houston) • Carolina Mudcats (Milwaukee) • Down East Wood Ducks (Texas) • Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Chi Cubs) • Winston-Salem Dash (Chi Sox) « Myles Straw has been one of the rising stars for the Buies Creek Astros this year. The Carolina League All Star drove in 41 runs and stole 36 bases in 114 games before being called up to Double-A Corpus Christi. | Photo courtesy of the Buies Creek Astros MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU CAMPBELL MAGAZINE 35 PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BUIES CREEK ASTROS SMALL-TOWN A team named for the nation’s prominent Perry Stadium stood out immediately. space program located in a “place” that covers “When we first came to Campbell, we just fell BASEBALL roughly 2.2 square miles of mostly tobacco in love with it,” said Ryan, whose father pitched Buies Creek isn’t the smallest fields (and, of course, a university). one of his record-setting seven no-hitters town in America with a professional baseball team, The scene that November was surreal. Astros against Jim Perry in 1973. “This is a world-class but they’re close. Sauget and executives, local elected officials and Campbell facility, and so we targeted it as the spot we Loch Sheldrake are both home administration donned blue and orange wanted to be at. Luckily for us, we found an to independent teams, making ballcaps and shook hands at home plate in Jim administration and an athletics director happy Buies Creek currently the Perry Stadium. Camel cheerleaders unveiled a and willing to work with us.” smallest town to host a team associated with a Major League very Astros-looking logo with “BC” where the Ryan said part of the negotiating was “finding affiliate: big “H” should be. the best interests Campbell and the Astros.” • Sauget, Illinois: 159 As strange as it looked, it all somehow felt When the deal was made, Campbell was in • Loch Sheldrake, N.Y. 1,910 right. Even the weather on that mid-November the process of adding to its stadium more • Buies Creek, North Carolina: afternoon felt more like a warm early-season seating, in-ground dugouts, a viewing deck, 2,942 game in May. For an organization that had new locker rooms and coaches’ offices, and a • Zebulon, North Carolina: 4,433 spent the previous eight seasons in Lancaster, state-of-the-art scoreboard. What it lacked • Bisbee, Arizona: 5,308 California — a city on the western edge of the was a professional-grade playing surface. The • Bluefield, Virginia: 5,444 Mojave Desert where average highs in the Astros fixed that by providing new synthetic • Wappingers Falls, N.Y.: 5,522 summer range from 95 to 100 degrees — North turf — a surface that “replicates a natural • Moosic, Pennsylvania: 5,719 Carolina was an oasis. baseball field’s look and playability” — installed • Alpine, Texas: 5,905 in January. • Princeton, West Virginia: Last October, the Astros officially announced 6,432 • Old Orchard Beach, Maine: it was buying a Minor League franchise in After some creative scheduling to allow for 8,624 Fayetteville — a move made to help streamline two teams to share one stadium from April to • Trinidad, Colorado: 8,771 its farm system to control player movement mid-May, the inaugural season of the Buies • Pulaski, Virginia: 8,909 more efficiently (the organization runs Rookie Creek Astros was set. The excitement from • Kodak, Tennessee: 9,273 League and Short Season A teams in the east Campbell’s side was palpable. and its Class-A squad in Iowa). Before the “Just the entire relationship with Houston purchase, Ryan and David Lane, Buies Creek’s and what this team can mean for our program general manager, were scouting cities and is immeasurable,” Athletics Director Bob towns near Fayetteville to host the team while Roller said on Opening Day in April. “Every the new ballpark was being built. day in the New York Times, the USA Today and Campbell University’s recently renovated Jim across the nation, ‘Buies Creek’ will appear in 36 SUMMER 2017 the standings. And the games themselves will " WHEN WE Love of the game. introduce a lot of people to Campbell’s campus. It’s great exposure.” FIRST CAME TO It’s a 350-step walk from their cramped locker rooms on the lower level of the Pope For Campbell President J. Bradley Creed, CAMPBELL, WE Convocation Center to the outfield gate at Jim having the Astros so close was extra special. JUST FELL IN Perry Stadium. The new rubber and artificial He grew up a few hours from Houston and grass turf — though ideal when it comes to attended his first Major League game in the LOVE WITH IT." ground balls, diving and base running — traps Astrodome as a kid in the 1960s. heat so that 90-degree day games in June feel — Reid Ryan, president of the about 10 degrees hotter. And there’s only so “It makes this native Texan proud,” Creed Houston Astros and son of much Moe’s, Chick-fil-A and Subway a player said. “You’ll have local folks introduced to Hall of Fame pitching legend or coach can eat before they’re longing for this organization, and you’ll have Astros Nolan Ryan more dining-out options.