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For a true baseball fan, the sights and sounds of a "real" ballpark are like none other. The sight of the clean, white baselines before a game, the bright lights and the deep green of the grass, the ever-present smell of hot dogs and popcorn, the sound of the vendors shouting "GET your peanuts, programs!" and the feel of a warm spring or summer afternoon take us to our own "field of dreams." Spartanburg's Duncan Park is just the ballpark to send older baseball fans on this sentimental journey - and to create new journeys of their own for the younger crowd. As most Spartanburg residents know, Duncan Park Baseball Stadium is the oldest minor league ballpark in the country. It served the community for decades as the home of the Spartanburg Phillies, the South Atlantic League's affiliate for the Philadelphia Phillies. In its day as a new stadium, it was a bright star and a pride of the community. But over the years, things changed. With a seating capacity of only 3,000 and no longer meeting the minimum standard of the baseball league, Duncan Park was threatened with falling out of favor in the hearts of local baseball fans. After all, many cities were tearing down the old stadiums and replacing them with bigger - and less fan-oriented - mega-parks. But Spartanburg had a better idea, the thought being to keep this loyal, old friend as a respected part of the community, a position it had earned again and again through the years. Spartanburg's leaders had the foresight not only to preserve this lovely park, but they made the decision to continue to put this elegant, old-fashioned field to good use every day. More than ever, today the City of Spartanburg continues to give the stadium the proper care and maintenance it deserves after so many years of devoted service. Today's fans understand that the limited seating capacity, once considered a negative, is, perhaps, the very essence of Duncan Park's charm. Since it is smaller, baseball fans are able to sit much closer to the field than they can at the "Super Parks". They get the chance to see baseball played the way it was meant to be, up close. Fans can actually see the faces of players and coaches, watch for coaching signals to steal a base, even hear the ball as it pops in a fielder's glove. Those things aren't part of the experience when your seats are in row UU of section 358. So Duncan Park Baseball Stadium quietly marks the passage of time in Spartanburg as a vital, contributing member of the community. It retains its practical purpose by being the home of a new generation of baseball teams. While many will remember its days as the home field of the Spartanburg Phillies in their long run from 1971-1996, many others visit it weekly as the proud and respected home of both the USC-Spartanburg and Wofford College baseball teams. Young families of today enjoy this truly family-oriented ballpark; and isn't that really what baseball is all about?
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