Ripken the Bat Dog prepares for an additional season with Durham Bulls

The Durham Bulls are an establishment within the Bull City. So is “Ripken the Bat Dog,” an American Black Lab educated retrieve unfastened bats on the sphere throughout video games.

Durham has lengthy been the younger sibling metropolis residing within the shadow of its capital neighbor, Raleigh. Sure, they’ve a smaller inhabitants they usually get second billing on the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, however there are some issues that Durham simply does higher.

One of these issues is baseball.

Read More: Who wants MLB? North Carolina has a few of the greatest minor league ballparks in America.

In 1988, Durham obtained its15 minutes of fame because the setting for Bull Durhama rom-com starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins. Costner and Robbins performed the hardened vet and new recruit, respectively, on native minor league baseball crew the Durham Bulls, with Sarandon finishing the love triangle.

At the time of the film’s launch, the Bulls performed within the Class A Carolina League, however have since moved as much as the Triple A International League, serving because the farm system affiliate for MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays.

Since 1995, the crew has performed in Durham Bulls Athletic Park, situated within the coronary heart of downtown Durham on the American Tobacco Campus. The historic web site is home to up to date meals locations and leisure venues however with all of the preserved attraction of the old brick warehouses that after pumped out Lucky Strike cigarettes.

On June 17, 1993, the Bulls retired the late Hall of Famer Joe Morgan’s No. 18 jersey. It is the primary quantity retired in Bulls History. Other notable skilled gamers to have performed in Durham embrace Bob Boone, Steve Avery, Andruw Jones, Evan Longoria, David Price, Wander Franco, and Lawrence “Crash” Davis

Perhaps the most important star on the sphere in recent years, nonetheless, has been Ripken the Bat Dog, an American Black Lab who was educated by Sit Means Sit Dog Training in Apex to retrieve unfastened bats on the sphere throughout video games.

Set to show 8 years old this season, Ripken remains to be at it, and you’ll watch him prepare for spring training on his Instagram account.

Pup on the diamond (and soccer discipline)

Born on Aug. 1, 2016, in Boise, Idaho, Ripken the Bat Dog, aka Rip, made his option to Raleigh as a young pup. His rookie season as a bat retriever on the ballfield got here in 2019 with the Holly Springs Salamanders, an newbie crew within the Coastal Plain League that’s beneath the identical possession because the Durham Bulls.

Weighing in at round 70 kilos, Ripken’s pursuits embrace frisbees, hugs, squeaky toys, and cleansing up meals from beneath the kitchen desk, based on his page on the Durham Bulls website. His hobbies are listed as “fetching bats, fetching frisbees, fetching sticks, fetching balls, fetching…”

Apparently, kickoff tees belong on the record of things Ripken enjoys fetching, as he started retrieving discarded tees following kickoffs at NC State University football games at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh in 2019.

In truth, it’s on the soccer discipline the place Ripken can really get again to his roots, as his dad Cowboy Kohl was as soon as the kicking tee retriever for the Boise State University soccer crew.

Fans don’t simply get to benefit from the spectacle of Ripken’s bat retrieval abilities throughout home video games at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, additionally they get to fulfill him throughout choose occasions like Bark within the Park.

Five instances a yr, the Durham Bulls host the occasion, which invitations canine house owners to deliver their pooch to a recreation and benefit from the festivities (and perhaps a chew of a sizzling canine?). Dogs require a ticket to attend Bark within the Park and should sit within the garden or sure assigned sections of the park.

Bark within the Park dates haven’t but been introduced for the 2024 season, so stay tuned for those updates.

Behind each nice canine is a good coach

Despite his lineage because the son of a kickoff tee retriever, Ripken the Bat Dog wasn’t born with the abilities to change into a legend of the Durham space. He realized these from Michael O’Donnell, who opened a Sit Means Sit Dog Training franchise in Apex together with his spouse Melissa in January 2016.

According to the Sit Means Sit websiteMichael grew up coaching his household dogs from a really young age. After graduating from Radford University in Virginia, he relocated to North Carolina and commenced teaching baseball.

While pursuing a profession in gross sales, O’Donnell labored part-time for the Sit Means Sit Raleigh franchise. After three years, he took the soar, leaving gross sales and heading to Las Vegas to take part in Sit Means Sit canine coaching college beneath the route of Fred Hassen, the corporate’s founder.

Ripken got here alongside about eight months after the O’Donnells launched their business, and when he was prepared, the household started together with him of their TV commercials. Ripken was destined for reside crowds, nonetheless, and in 2019 he took the sphere for the primary time in Holly Springs.

Now that he’s been within the limelight for 5 years, Ripken has some firm. Not solely does he have his imitators — the Bulls’ division rival Charlotte Knights recently announced that their very own bat canine, named Dog, will be part of the crew for Bark within the Ballpark evenings this summer season — however ABC11 reported in September 2023 that the O’Donnells have already begun coaching Ripken’s younger brother, Champ to take some at-bats from his iconic older brother.

Champ, who ought to be nearing a yr old now, could get some turns in Durham this summer season, although it would take a while to organize him for NC State soccer video games, which have a extra raucous ambiance.

As for Ripken, he’s taking issues in stride. “He kind of gives [Champ] the side-eye here and there,” Michael advised ABC 11.

The traditional story of the grizzled veteran being requested to make room for the flashy young rookie. Might we’ve got a sequel to Bull Durham on our fingers?

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished right here beneath a Creative Commons license.