58 | May/June 2019
Baseball hits downtown Fayetteville
BY CATHERINE PRITCHARD | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW WONDERLY
I
t became really official on April 18 when the
first pitch was thrown at Segra Stadium: Minor
League Baseball is back in Fayetteville.
And it's a biiig hit.
Years in the making, the Fayetteville
Woodpeckers nevertheless looked like an overnight
sensation, with a sell-out crowd of 6,200 packing
the stands, the luxury boxes, the right field bar and
grill, the le field berm seating, the outfield "rocking
porch," the picnic tables and the kids' zone. Not to
mention the concourse – and the store where team
merchandise sold as briskly as the rat-a-tat-tat of a
red-cockaded woodpecker hammering on a tree on
nearby Fort Bragg.
e human Woodpeckers did some hammering
themselves that night - although not quite enough
to overcome the seven runs put up by the Carolina
Mudcats. Despite the loss, the evening won
overwhelming praise from fans who were there – and
many express confidence over the intertwined futures
of the Woodpeckers, Segra Stadium and Fayetteville,
particularly downtown where the facility is located.
It's a much different ballgame than was faced by
the city's previous Minor League Baseball teams – the
F E A T U R E
