Neha Patil (Editor)

Down East Wood Ducks

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Team logo
  
Division
  
Southern Division

Manager
  
Howard Johnson

Current
  
A-Advanced (from 2017)

League titles (0)
  
None

Ballpark
  
Grainger Stadium (2017–)

Down East Wood Ducks httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumbf

League
  
Carolina League (from 2017)

Current
  
Texas Rangers (from 2017)

down east wood ducks open house shines light on kinston s growth


The Down East Wood Ducks are a Minor League Baseball team of the Carolina League (CL), and the High-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. They are located in Kinston, North Carolina. The team plays its home games at Grainger Stadium, which opened in 1949 and holds 4,100 fans.

Contents

Established in 2017, the Wood Ducks, or DEWDs as they are popularly known, joined Minor League Baseball and the Carolina League as an expansion team and assumes the Class-A Advanced spot from the California League's High Desert Mavericks who were the previous Rangers affiliate. The Mavericks were originally going to relocate to Kinston while switching from the California League to the Carolina League, but Minor League Baseball instead decided that Kinston would be an expansion team and not the relocation of the Mavericks and that the Mavericks would simply cease operations and give up their Class-A Advanced spot to the Kinston expansion team of the Carolina League.

Kinston has served as a farm club for eleven different major league franchises and one minor league club. Professional baseball dates back to a 1908 squad in the Eastern Carolina League. Despite having one of the smallest markets in professional baseball, Kinston has proved its viability for over a century.

The new Kinston team fills the void that was left behind by the Kinston Indians who also played in the Carolina League; the Kinston Indians' last season was in 2011.

Grainger stadium sees upgrades in advance of down east wood ducks debut


History

On August 22, 2016, the Texas Rangers announced plans to bring a minor league team back to Kinston. The Class A-Advanced team dubbed the Down East Wood Ducks will join the Carolina League starting in the 2017 season.

Naming controversies

The new ownership group, Rangers Kinston, LLC, filed a trademark application for the name Wood Ducks on August 15, 2016. One week later, on August 22, the ownership group announced that the Rangers were bringing a team to Kinston and that there would be a naming contest for the fans. On September 16, the team announced the finalists in the contest: Down East Eagles, Down East HamHawks, Down East Hogzillas, Down East Shaggers, and Down East Wood Ducks. The names drew many negative reactions from the fans who were upset that the team would not be known by the town name, that Kinston was not part of "Down East" North Carolina, and that some of the names were demeaning. On November 2, the team announced that the new name would be the name that they trademarked on August 15, Down East Wood Ducks, without naming a winning fan. A similar situation happened when Kinston joined the Virginia League in 1925. After a name the team contest, the owners decided that none of the submitted team names were satisfactory and picked a name of their own choosing - Eagles.

Grainger Stadium

The Down East Wood Ducks play their home games at Grainger Stadium located at 400 East Grainger Avenue in Kinston. The original structure was built by architect John J. Rowland in 1949 at a cost of $170,000 inclusive of everything except the land. $150,000 of the money was raised by bond issue. The stadium is owned by the city and leased by the team. A dedicatory plaque identifies the structure as "Municipal Stadium", but it has been called Grainger Stadium since it was first built. Kinston Indians ownership referred to it as "Historic Grainger Stadium" due to its age relative to other fields in the Carolina League. It is the second oldest stadium in the circuit. The name Grainger comes from its location on Grainger Avenue as well as its use early on by Grainger High School. Grainger is a prominent old family name in Lenoir County.

References

Down East Wood Ducks Wikipedia