Grainger Stadium
Celebrating 75 seasons of excellence at Historic Grainger Stadium
By Bryan Hanks and Shivar Person
Since the first game was played at Grainger Stadium on Friday, April 8, 1949 — a 5-4 win for Grainger High School against its visitors from Tarboro — millions of fans have visited the venerable venue in its 75 subsequent seasons.
Although mostly used for baseball games, Historic Grainger Stadium has seen its share of football, softball and soccer games, along with concerts, funerals and many other events.
Let’s look back at some of the great memories “The Old Lady” has inspired in her seven-plus decades.
GRAINGER HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP SPORTS
Playing in that inaugural game on April 8, 1949 was a young Grainger High star named Eugene “Red” McDaniel. That first home game of the season kicked off a memorable campaign in which McDaniel and his Red Devil teammates went on to win the 1949 Class A state baseball championship.
That might’ve been the first, but it was far from the only prep sports title won by teams that played at Historic Grainger Stadium. The Red Devils won the second of back-to-back Class A baseball titles in 1950. The 1967 Grainger baseball squad also won the 3A state championship.
State titles inside Grainger Stadium weren’t just on the baseball diamond. The 1955 Grainger Red Devils football team won the 2A state championship by defeating Hendersonville, 12-7, at the stadium.
The Adkin High School Pirates, Kinston’s African-American school, wrapped up a wildly-successful season in 1952 when it won the state football title — only surrendering two points the entire season! That 1952 championship game also marked the first time Black athletes played at Historic Grainger Stadium. From that point on, though, the Grainger and Adkin football squads alternated home games at the stadium, one of the few mainstream facilities in the South that allowed Black schools to play within the gates.
Following desegregation, Grainger and Adkin combined to form Kinston High School; the newly-named “Vikings” continued to play their fall and winter sports at Grainger Stadium until 1977, when the current school was built on Queen Street.
In 2015, the Arendell Parrott Academy baseball team won the NCISAA title under the leadership of George Whitfield — the same George Whitfield who won a state title in 1955 while playing for Grainger.
PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL
Five days after Grainger High School defeated Tarboro on April 8, 1949, the Kinston Eagles — a Class D minor league baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox that played in the Coastal Plain League — played its first game at Grainger Stadium. The Eagles earned a 6-5 victory thanks to a home run by, ironically, a man named Homer Lowdermilk.
That contest began a proud history of baseball at the stadium that saw one CPL title in 1962 with the Eagles, five Carolina League championships with the Kinston Indians in 1988, 1991, 1995, 2004 and 2006 and a Carolina League title with the Down East Wood Ducks in 2017. Those teams have also finished as runners-up in 1971 (Kinston Eagles), 1987, 1990, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2005 and 2011 (Kinston Eagles) and 2021 (Down East Wood Ducks). The stadium has also hosted league all-star games in the Carolina League.
A rich history of players who went on to play, manage or coach in Major League Baseball have worn “Kinston” across their chest. Those players and managers include Fred McGriff and Grady Little of the Kinston Blue Jays, along with Kinston Indians players Albert Belle, Jim Thome, C.C. Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, Manny Ramirrez, Lonnie Chisenhall, Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore and K-Tribe managers/coaches Mike Hargrove, Eric Wedge and Torey Lovullo.
Following a successful tenure in the Negro American League, Carl Long became the first Black man to play in the Carolina League for the Kinston Eagles in 1956; he went on to register 111 runs batted in that season, which remains a Kinston professional baseball record to this day.
Current Texas Rangers Leody Tavares and Bubba Thompson played for the DEWDs at Grainger Stadium, while the 2019 Minor League Baseball manager of the year — Corey Ragsdale — wore the DEWD colors.
COLLEGE BASEBALL
While professional and prep sports have been played at Historic Grainger Stadium, college baseball has also had its turn at the plate.
The Colonial Athletic Association held its conference tournament at Grainger Stadium from 1995-99, with Old Dominion (1995, 1996), Richmond (1997, 1998) and ECU (1999) winning CAA titles there. ECU also won the only Conference USA championship tournament played at Grainger Stadium in 2002. An NCAA Super Regional, won by UNC-Wilmington against ECU, was played within her walls in 2002.
Since 2011, the Freedom Classic — an annual baseball showdown between the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy — has been played every year, except in 2020 due to weather and 2021 due to post-Coronavirus concerns (Army replaced Navy in 2021). The Freedom Classic, the brainchild of legendary former Kinston-Lenoir County Parks and Recreation Department Director Bill Ellis, has drawn thousands of fans from all over the nation to Historic Grainger Stadium in its 12 years.
The venerable stadium has even hosted collegiate baseball national championships. The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division III World Series crowned its champions in 2015 and 2016 at Grainger Stadium. Tyler Junior College from Tyler, Texas, won both those titles.
CELEBRATING HISTORY AND THE HEROES
On April 23 of this year, the Down East Wood Ducks brought back some of the stadium’s favorite sons to celebrate. Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in the game was McDaniel.
McDaniel, an esteemed member of the Kinston-Lenoir County Sports Hall of Fame, is also noteworthy in the annals of history for being a celebrated member of the U.S. Navy. He was captured in Vietnam during his 81st bombing mission over the country and was held as a prisoner of war for 2,117 days by the enemy.
Joining McDaniel at the ceremony were George Whitfield and Claude Kennedy, GHS champions on the Grainger diamond in 1955; Frazier Bruton, who donned the jersey his brother Doug wore in the 1949 state championship season; Tom White, the great grandson of Jesse Grainger, the man who donated the land on which the stadium sits and for whom the stadium is named; and Tommy Walston and Stephen Watson, two legendary groundskeepers for the K-Tribe and DEWDs who have each won multiple national awards for their hard work and dedication.
This season, the Woodies have also celebrated many other moments in the historic venue’s legacy, including inviting many Black heroes from the city’s history.
Although MLB-affiliated baseball could be ending soon — reports as of this writing have the DEWDs potentially leaving Historic Grainger Stadium as early as 2025 or 2026 — there is no doubt the old stadium will still be the place folks from all over Eastern North Carolina will gather to root, root, root for the home team!
Bryan Hanks has covered sports in Kinston since 2002 and throughout North Carolina since 1991. He has spent hundreds of nights at Historic Grainger Stadium as a fan, public address announcer, sports reporter/editor and observer. Shivar Person is a group sales executive for the Down East Wood Ducks, a state championship-winning soccer coach and proud N.C. State University alum. Shivar’s extensive research for this piece is extremely appreciated.
Historic Grainger Stadium
Major League Baseball-affiliated teams that have played at Historic Grainger Stadium since it opened in 1949:
• Boston Red Sox (1949-51)
• Detroit Tigers (1952)
• No team (1953-55)
• Pittsburgh Pirates (1956)
• Washington Senators (1957)
• Unaffiliated (1958-61)
• Pittsburgh Pirates (1962-65)
• Atlanta Braves (1966-67)
• New York Yankees (1968-72)
• Unaffiliated (1973)
• Montreal Expos (1974)
• Unaffiliated (1975-78)
• Toronto Blue Jays (1979-85)
• Unaffiliated (1986)
• Cleveland Indians (1987-2011)
• No team (2012-16)
• Texas Rangers (2017-present)
Carolina League championship teams that played at Historic Grainger Stadium:
• 1962: Kinston Eagles won by defeating Durham
• 1988: Kinston Indians won title by defeating Lynchburg
• 1991: Kinston Indians won title by defeating Lynchburg
• 1995: Kinston Indians won title by defeating Wilmington
• 2004: Kinston Indians won title by defeating Wilmington
• 2006: Kinston Indians won title by defeating Frederick
• 2017: Down East Wood Ducks won co-championship by defeating Myrtle Beach
Notes: The Kinston Eagles finished as Carolina League runners-up in 1971 while the Kinston Indians finished second in the league in 1987, 1990, 1996, 1997, 2002, 2005 and 2011. The Down East Wood Ducks were runners-up in 2021
High school state championship teams that played at Historic Grainger Stadium:
• 1949: Grainger High School baseball (1A)
• 1950: Grainger High School baseball (1A)
• 1952: Adkin High School football
• 1955: Grainger High School football (2A)
• 1967: Grainger High School baseball (3A)
• 2015: Arendell Parrott Academy baseball (NCISAA 2A)