The Durham Bulls are a minor league baseball team based in Durham, North Carolina. The team, which plays in the International League, is the AAA (Triple-A) affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays major-league club. The Bulls play in Durham Bulls Athletic Park, better known as the "D-Bap", located in downtown Durham. The team became internationally famous in 1988 following the release of the movie Bull Durham, which starred Kevin Costner as a catcher for the Bulls and Susan Sarandon as his love interest.
At the time of Bull Durham, both the real Bulls and their movie counterparts played in the high-A Carolina League, two steps below their current position in the Triple-A IL. The team moved up in 1998, when the Triple-A Durham Bulls Tickets leagues expanded by two teams to accommodate affiliates for the major league expansion Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks.
The 1997 season, during which the Durham Bulls Tickets Bulls were an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, marked their last year in the class-A Carolina League; that franchise spent 1998 in Danville, Virginia as the Danville 97s before moving to their current home of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Durham Bulls Tickets in 1999 as the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. In 1998 Wolff's dream of attracting a AAA club came true when the Bulls became the AAA affiliate of the newly-formed Tampa Bay Devil Rays, their parent club ever since, and began play in the International League Durham Bulls Tickets (IL). That year saw the Bulls play their first game outside the United States when they played road games against the Ottawa Lynx, though it would be another year before they recorded their first win in Canada. The 2001 season saw the Bulls set single-game {10,916 on July 23) and full-season (505,319 set on September 1) attendance records. Then, on September 12, 2002, the Bulls won their first IL championship, Durham Bulls Tickets defeating the Buffalo Bisons 2-0 for the Governors' Cup. 364 days later, the team became the first in the 119-year history of the championship to sweep back-to-back final playoff series, defeating the Pawtucket Red Sox Durham Bulls Tickets.
