Greenville Braves v Carolina Mudcats, July 6, 2000

Five Country Stadium, Section 211 Row 11

New, little ballpark on the outskirts of Raleigh surrounded by corn fields and a cinder parking lot. As you would envision for a bush league park in the Carolinas.

The configuration is odd. The 1st level is field level with the 2nd level cantilevering above. The lower level is totally enclosed and dark. I think it was a neat design on paper, and a disaster in practice. The 2nd level, first row sits right up to field level. The upper level has a huge net between the seats and the playing field. I suspect when the place opened a few foul balls careened off some noggins in the upper level due to the close proximity of the seats.

Juan Pierre was a Rockies prospect playing for Carolina in 2000. Pierre stepped up big time in Los Angeles filling in for Manny Ramirez, who served a 50 game suspension for steriod use.

Greenville was managed by Paul Runge, a Richmond Braves player in the 80's when I worked at the restaurant in the Braves AAA stadium. The team also had on the roster Steve Avery, Rafeal Furcal and Marcus Giles. All who went on to have decent careers in Atlanta.