A few short feet to the right of the home dugout at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, you’ll likely find longtime season-ticket holders Jeff and Lauren Fieldman.

They’re no strangers to the ballpark. Their metallic blue seats, side by side in section 105, row A, are integral to their community. The couple knows and has met just about everyone — the players, the coaches, the event staff, you name it. Pressed up against the netting, day in and day out, is how they stay part of a sport they both love deeply.

Although the two met in high school, they didn’t marry until 2015. Their first date was a night at home watching an All-Star game on television. By the fourth inning, Lauren swore she could have married her long-lost counterpart.

The rest was history.

“We try to come to every baseball game, because we’ve had season tickets for about nine to 10 years,” she said. “We love them; baseball is our love. Our honeymoon was at Fenway. This is absolutely what we love to do, and it brings us a lot of joy, so we’re going to enjoy it for as long as we can.”

To them, that time is sacred. Jeff has spent the last few years with terminal prostate cancer. When not at the ballpark, they often go to concerts and also hold season tickets to both the Durham Performing Arts Center and the Carolina Hurricanes. The two have made a pact to live life to the fullest with the time Jeff has left.

“It may be two years, it may be six to eight years. We don’t know. It just depends on how fast the cancer grows and if it spreads anywhere else,” Jeff said.

Jeff grew up with baseball. He played through high school and into the start of his first year of college before a career-ending knee injury. His love of the game kept him coming back, though, as even after graduating, he played on his own for most of his life.

“I played part of my freshman year and then ruined my knee, and back then you just didn’t fix things like that,” he said. “That was back in the ‘80s, but I’ve always played baseball, and I played until I was 45 years old.”

They often spend their time at the park getting to know nearby spectators and staff, and ultimately becoming students of the game. Sheila Fieldman, Jeff’s mother, also attends games with the two after moving in with them. Last season, they often hosted additional guests at their seats.

“The first base coach, his kids used to sit with us,” Lauren said. “So we would watch them during the game because his mother was watching, but she has mobility issues. So we would make healthy lunches for them or dinner, so we could hang out.”

Over the years the two have spent with the Bulls, they’ve seen the club’s minor leaguers fulfill their dream by getting called up to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Bulls’ major league affiliate. To the Fieldmans, one of their favorite parts of the sport is the romance of it all.

“I love major league baseball, but I would rather go to a minor league park any day of the week,” Jeff said. “Because these players are really trying to get to that next level. So, you know, they appreciate the fans a little more, and we appreciate them a little more.”

Across the diamond and behind the park’s iconic blue scoreboard sits another longtime Bulls fan: Chris Ivy, the board’s manual operator for 18 years.

Ivy moved to Durham in 1980, the same year the Bulls returned to the city after an eight-year absence. After spending most of his career as a social worker in the county’s Department of Social Services, he showed up at the local job fair in 2008 and interviewed for the Bulls’ manual scoreboard operator.

A few weeks later, he received a call saying he got the job.

“It was kind of serendipity, really,” Ivy said. “The fact that the year that I go down there, the manual scoreboard operator is open and I get the darn job.”

After retiring from social work in 2013, Ivy kept his gig as the Bulls’ full-time scoreboard operator. Having sat behind the board — nicknamed the “Blue Monster” — for thousands of games, his presence in the tiny opening under the ninth-inning slot on the scoreboard has become a staple of the Bulls.

“There’s a lot of different things going on,” he said. “There certainly is the ball game, and I get to keep score. It’s just like a zen moment for me. ”

Like Jeff, Ivy has lived most of his life with baseball. Now, after almost two decades as a ballpark employee, each game carries a sense of history for him. Recently, when Nashville Sounds pitcher Thomas Pannone pitched a perfect game at the park on Labor Day, the first in the minor leagues since 2017, Ivy kept a signed scorecard as a souvenir.

“As a kid, I would watch baseball up in New York State, the Yankees,” Ivy said. “I’m 77 now, so I was there for Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle and all that kind of stuff. So there’s a little bit of nostalgia to it all.”

Outside of his day job keeping score, Ivy enjoys bringing fans behind the wall.

“A lot of people have been coming to the ballpark for a good while, and they’ve never been able to see behind the scoreboard,” he said. “So I like to bring people behind there for that experience. I say sometimes the adults are more excited than the kids.”

The scoreboard is one of only a few manual boards left in the minor leagues. In the majors, only four teams have such iconic relics left: the Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies operate manual out-of-town boards, while the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs’ historic stadiums both have full vintage manual boards.

“Back in 2024, I wrote to the Red Sox. I explained that I’ve been working the manual scoreboard here for 17 years. Any chance that I would be able to meet with the scoreboard operators up in Boston? And they called me back and said, ‘Come on up,’” Ivy said. “So I had a great trip up to Boston, got to go behind the Green Monster, signed my name and had a good time.”

Baseball in Durham dates back to 1902, when the team was founded under the moniker of the Durham Tobacconists — a nod to the city’s historical ties to tobacco. In 1913, the team hit the field for the first time as the Bulls.

After merging with Raleigh’s then-existing minor league franchise in 1968, the group played under several names and changed major league affiliates numerous times. In 1972, the team ceased play, went on an eight-year hiatus, and did not return to Durham until 1980.

Bull Durham, directed by Ron Shelton and starring Kevin Costner, hit theaters just eight years later. The film dramatically boosted the club’s popularity and increased community support.

Soon after the club shifted to new ownership under then-Capitol Broadcasting Company President Jim Goodmon, construction began on its current ballpark, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, in 1993, which then opened in 1995.

Off the field, the Bulls are known for their various community initiatives and involvement. The group consistently donates tickets and other merchandise to local schools and organizations for silent auctions. They also host cancer walks, often sending the club’s mascot, Wool E. Bull, on hospital visits.

“To me, it looks like going back out into the community and donating where we can, and helping where we can, and just shaking the hands of people who are Durham Bulls fans,” Ciarra Kennedy, the Bulls’ manager of community and team relations, said. “That’s what means the most to me: getting to put the faces with the names.”

Edited by Taylor Motley and Natalie Jones.