Fayetteville Woodpeckers, Segra Stadium

The Fayetteville Woodpeckers downed the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, 4-3, on Father's Day (Sunday, June 19) in Fayetteville. In contrast with Durham's rapid shuffling of pitchers the other night, Fayetteville's starting pitcher, Edinson Batista, threw six shutout innings.

There were a couple of moments that told me we were watching a Class A game, not AAA. One was when a Kannapolis outfielder caught a long fly ball and started to jog toward the dugout before teammates yelled at him to make a throw. He must have forgotten how many outs there were. Not one but two runners tagged up to score. Given the closeness of the game, that was a big goof. 

Another was Fayetteville's second pitcher, a young man named Schroeder, who was simply the wildest pitcher I can ever remember seeing. He made it through one inning and was charged with three wild pitches, but two or three more went to the backstop, and in the scariest moment, he hit a batter on the helmet, right above his ear. The batter was okay, thankfully. Somehow only one run scored.

Angela lamented the fact that we were watching the Ballers versus the Peckers. But like the Cannon Ballers, there's some background to Fayetteville's team name too. It is tied to the red-cockaded woodpecker, an endangered species whose cause is well-known around these parts.

Segra Stadium, opened in 2019 and located on Hay Street in downtown Fayetteville, is new and nice. I liked the "see-through" fence in left field with the bullpens behind it, and I loved seeing and hearing the freight train rumbling past beyond left field. The outfield dimensions marked on the fences are 340' to left, 400' to center, 325' to right. The park holds 4,786 spectators. 

Ballpark foods sampled: a cheeseburger and fries, and a pulled-pork sandwich and hush puppies.  My ballpark beer was the Namaste Lavender Ale from Fayetteville's Gaston Brewing Company. 

Fayetteville sits in the Sandhills, a geological zone on the upper edge of the coastal plain, extending into South Carolina. Fayetteville has fielded a professional team off and on in various leagues since 1909. For several years the team was called the Highlanders or Scotties, referring to the Highland Scot migration to this part of the state in the 1700s. Later it used the name Generals, related to Fayetteville being the home of Fort Bragg and the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne.

• Rube Benton (1890-1937), from Clinton, was a rounder. Someone should write a song about him. He won 150 games as a National League pitcher and 172 more in the minors. He was the losing pitcher in a famous game in the 1917 World Series. Witnesses connected Rube to game fixing during the Black Sox era, though he was never banned from organized baseball. Died in a car crash a long way from home.
• The real Moonlight Graham (1877-1965) was born in Fayetteville. So was the real Austin Warren (b. 1996), currently building his Baseball Encyclopedia entry as a relief pitcher with the Los Angeles Angels.
• Taffy Wright (1911-1981) grew up in Lumberton, in Robeson County. A professional hitter for 9 seasons in the majors and 12 more in the minors, with 3 years of WW2 military service in the middle. Is sometimes credited as the 1938 American League batting champion, with a ridiculously low number of plate appearances (281).
• In 1914 Babe Ruth hit his first home run in a professional uniform, that of the Baltimore Orioles, during an exhibition game in Fayetteville.