There is a basketball games taking place this evening between two local universities. Each of these schools is an equal distance from the south Durham Wal-Mart. As a former Durham resident, it is safe to say that this Wal-Mart, which is located on the worst road in all of central North Carolina, could very well be the center of hell.
The picture below was edited out of the final edition of Dante's of The Inferno.
Drive north from Wal-Mart and you will run into a small, elite private school that was featured on Manny Ramirez's rookie card. He did not actually attend the school. Some say it's because the Indians drafted him in the first round and paid him a huge bonus.
It's more likely that Manny did not attend the school, because the chapel (shown in the background) has a statue of a man smoking a cigar in front of it.
No, seriously.
Drive south from the Wal-Mart and you will reach a large, public liberal arts university. Some of the student work and grading leaves a lot to be desired......
One of these schools will win a basketball game this evening.
One will have a chance to win a basketball championship on Monday evening.
Neither team will win their Division Title.
Neither team will win their League Title.
Neither team has won the National Championship, yet.
Neither will win the Final Stretch Championship.
The Durham Bulls, another local team that wears blue, won all of these championships within the last calendar year.
The Triple-A Intercontinental Champion Durham Bulls are up for 2 #MiLBYs, including Best Team!
— Durham Bulls (@DurhamBulls) October 12, 2021
The accolades speak for themselves:
- Triple-A East Southeast Division title ✅
- Triple-A East League crown ✅
- Triple-A National Championship ✅
- Triple-A Final Stretch Winners ✅
It appears that these two colleges, centered around a Wal-Mart in south Durham, are both really playing to see which of them is the second best sports team in town to the Bulls. Did I mention that there is no Wal-Mart in downtown Durham near the Bulls stadium?
Shall we look at some baseball cards?
It appears that Topps has recognized the greatness of the Durham Bulls and placed half of their team from last season into the 2022 Topps Heritage set. Better yet, a fair number of them signed autographs and I have spent some time working on tracking them down during the past week.
Shall we look at these highly successful, championship-winning players?
First up is Shane Baz. The guy has a championship ring from the Durham Bulls and appeared in the playoffs last year for the Rays. While the two local college teams playing basketball this evening have lost several games this year, Shane Baz has never lost a Major League game.
2-0.
Perfect.
Look at that blue hat. Beautiful.
Next up is Vidal Brujan. He also has a championship ring from the Durham Bulls. While the two blue schools are often ranked, Vidal has been ranked in the Baseball America Top Prospects list every single year that he has been in the Minors.
Have the blue schools been ranked every year that they've played basketball?
No.
Advantage Vidal.
Next up is outfielder Josh Lowe who has a championship ring with the Durham Bulls from last season.
Josh got one at-bat last year in the Majors and got a hit.
He's perfect.
Are the blue schools perfect at sports?
As I recall.....
No.
Last one.
Joe Ryan played in the Majors last season after he was traded for Nelson Cruz.
Was anyone from a blue school traded for Nelson Cruz?
No.
If you are staying up to watch the battle for the second-best-blue-team from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area, I hope your team wins.
Just curious... out of the two blue teams, who would you rather see lose? I grew up rooting for UNC, because of Worthy and Jordan... but didn't really follow college hoops closely after the 90's. But whenever I hear about UNC playing Duke, I root for the Tar Heels. This year was the exception. Was really hoping Coach K would go out with a 6th National Championship. Now that they've been eliminated, I'll root for UNC... but I don't think they'll beat Kansas.
ReplyDeleteAs a sports fan, I would rather see UNC lose, but that is the biggest local rival for us NC State people. It also does not help that UNC was coached by Roy Williams who, as a person who grew up in Missouri, was a hated figure of my childhood as the coach at Kansas. Duke is fairly lovable for sports outside of basketball. It's a tiny school with tough academics whose focus is generally not on athletics. Their football team plays in a 40,000 stadium that is almost 100 years old. The on-campus baseball stadium is a single set of bleachers that are worse than the undergrad school I went to, which is D1, but in the Ohio Valley Conference. They have five colleges within the university they are all elite, top 20 academic programs. It is a really tough sell to get student-athletes to commit to that level of academics while playing sports.
DeleteAs a teacher, I really appreciate both schools. I cannot tell you how incredible and generous both schools are with the local teaching community. NC State too. I have been to trainings at both UNC and Duke, which were first rate. UNC did a science program with my school one year while I was teaching in Durham, bought us all kinds of supplies. Duke once paid for my students to take an overnight trip to the Outer Banks, let them stay at their research facility, and then took them to Shackelford Island to see the feral horses.
As a parent, my son was a mont pre-mature, low weight, and needed a platelet transfusion within the first week of his birth. He was at a UNC hospital when this all happened. I am forever grateful for their work. I struggle with mental health, depression, etc. I see UNC doctors and they are great.
Yes, I prefer Duke as a sports fan, but they are both incredible places.
Thanks for responding to my question. For some reason I don't get email notifications when people respond to comments anymore, but I was really looking forward to reading your response so I made sure to come back... and you truly didn't disappoint. I wish I had a passion for college sports like I can tell you have. I love that there is a deep and emotional rivalry between these three schools, but you has a fan have a deep respect for both rivals. It's a thing of beauty.
DeleteI think it's really cool that you have close to the heart stories involving both of these schools. That overnight trip to the Outer Banks sounds awesome... and I'm grateful that UNC took care of your son. Thanks again for the detailed response. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I'm really curious about this Walmart now!
ReplyDeleteI will have to take a field trip and post pictures sometimes. College Wal-Marts are terrible, this is in between two large colleges. The city council in Durham also hates Wal-Mart. I don't blame them, outside of baseball cards. They have run one of the Wally World locations into the ground, this one in between Duke and UNC has had trouble getting permits to remodel. The last time I went in it, five years ago or so, I am almost sure it still had a giant ICEE dispenser and popcorn popper inside the front door along with a Sam's Choice soda machine.
DeleteIt's a time warp back to the 1990s retail with a generous helping of college kids.