May 21, 2009

We are off to a great start to the 2009 ACC Baseball Championship. Over the last two days, I have been able to take a few different looks at the game that I wanted to share with you.

Heather Hirschman
theACC.com Website Coordinator

The View from Diamond View II
Just beyond left-center field at Durham Bulls Athletic Park is a sleek office building that houses local businesses. It is the more contemporary of two buildings that create a fortress around the outfield.

On Wednesday, people from those businesses enjoyed the great weather and took advantage of the spectacular view to watch the first day of ACC Baseball Championship action. It looked like they had a great vantage point from up there, so I journeyed over to check it out.

I met Kurt, Kurt and Bill from Verity Asset Management who were enjoying the game from the fifth floor corner balcony. This has to be the best view available!

On Thursday in game 5, Miami’s Yasmani Grandal hit a home run off the third floor balcony, just under the balcony where I was yesterday.

Inside the Blue Monster
Part of what makes baseball such a great sport is the nostalgia and tradition that is so ingrained through the sport. Fenway’s Green Monster is one of those iconic traditions of baseball and here in Durham there is the Blue Monster. At 32’ the southern version is a little smaller, but the concept is the same – a towering wall that makes home runs to leftfield more challenging and houses a manual scoreboard.

Yes, we live in a day and age where we get everything instantly… we are always striving to do everything better and faster. That makes it that much more special when we rely on a real, live (not always the fastest) human being to take the time to personally manage something like a scoreboard that could be done electronically, but why?

I had the privilege to go “inside” the Blue Monster and meet two of the people who hand change its scoreboard. Chris Ivy usually manages the scoreboard for the Durham Bulls. Video board operator Jerry Nuesell was filling in when I visited during Game 4 and he showed me the ropes.

It’s a very modest area, down the bare wooden stairs into the dark, narrow, gravel-lined path between the blue aluminum of the monster and the concrete wall that supports the left field deck. There is a simple wooden deck systematically lined with panels of numbers to be loaded into the green board.

In Front of the Blue Monster
Boston College’s Mike Sudol played in left field today. He offers a unique perspective having played in front of both the Green and Blue Monsters.

“During the middle of the game, I looked back there and saw the guy inside. I made eye contact and just smiled. I think it’s pretty funny. It reminds me of up in Fenway (Park). They (the Monsters) are very similar, but they do have different bounces. I think I am really lucky to (have played) at both of them. I know this place is really special to a lot of people around here and it’s the same thing at Fenway.”