November 5, 2026 — Thursday Edition

Happy Thursday, Durham. This weekend the city's oldest ballpark celebrates its 100th birthday with a free game, the first-ever Durham FRINGE Festival plays its last shows, Duke Gardens fills up with chrysanthemums, and the most famous ukulele player alive walks onto the Carolina Theatre stage. Tonight alone you could pick from bluegrass royalty, a play at Hayti, a chefs' gala and Duke basketball. It's a good week to live here. Let's get into it.

Before the DBAP, before the snorting bull, before Kevin Costner, there was a ballpark on Corporation Street. It opened in 1926 as El Toro Park. A hundred years later it's still there, still green, and on Saturday it's hosting one of the better ideas anyone has had for a birthday party.

From noon to 4 PM, the Alternative Baseball Organization brings its "80's Double Feature: Playing for Community Integration Tour" to the Durham Athletic Park for a special nine-inning game. ABO is a national nonprofit that runs trainings, events and activities for young people with disabilities. On Saturday its athletes take the field alongside, and against, local community leaders and former pros.

That's the whole pitch, and it's a good one. The DAP is a close-to-the-field kind of ballpark. Using its centennial to put players on that grass who don't usually get the invitation feels exactly right for this town.

INDY Week points out a nice bit of symmetry: the ballpark opened the same year as the Carolina Theatre, which has been celebrating its own centennial all year. Durham built two places to gather in 1926, and we're still gathering in both.

Pro tip: It's free, with donations encouraged, and organizers ask for an RSVP. Wool E. Bull will be there, so bring the kids. Make a morning of it: the farmers' market and craft market are a short walk away at Durham Central Park until noon, which gets you to first pitch right on time.

📅 Sat, Nov 7, noon–4 PM · Durham Athletic Park, 500 W. Corporation St. · Free, donations encouraged (INDY Week · RSVP)

👩‍🍳 Chefs for Change is tonight. The Chefs for Change gala is tonight at The Cookery. If you have tickets, eat a light lunch. (Triangle Food Blog)

🥬 Saturday market, then baseball. The Durham Farmers' Market runs 8 AM to noon at Durham Central Park, with the Durham Craft Market next to it from 9. Coffee, a pastry, a bag of apples, and you're set for nine innings. (DCP)

Twenty-two miles, one big Saturday. Duke (6-2, 3-2 ACC) goes to NC State at 12:30 on Saturday riding the momentum of a 47-2 win over Boston College and a running back, Nate Sheppard, who just scored five touchdowns in a game. Coach Manny Diaz told reporters the key is "how we play in November." Here's November. NCCU (2-0 MEAC after shutting out Howard 34-0) is at Norfolk State Saturday at noon on ESPN+. Tonight at Cameron, No. 2 Duke hosts Coastal Carolina at 8 on ACC Network after opening with an 84-50 win over Army, and at Koskinen, Duke women's soccer plays its home finale against Virginia at 6. The Duke women's basketball team opened with a win over Green Bay on Tuesday. Next up for the men after tonight: Michigan State in Chicago on Tuesday. (CBS Sports · NCCU)

It's the first full weekend of standard time, so plan around the light. Sunset is right around 5:15, which means the centennial game at the DAP ends in golden hour and the Carolina Theatre crowd walks in under full dark. Afternoons are the prize this time of year. Check the National Weather Service forecast before you head out, and bring a layer for anything that ends after 5. (NWS)

1926 — the year the Durham Athletic Park and the Carolina Theatre both opened · 100 — candles on the ballpark's cake · 9 — innings on Saturday · 50 — artists in the first Durham FRINGE · 25 — venues they played · 4 — strings on Jake Shimabukuro's instrument · 22 — miles from Wallace Wade to Carter-Finley

INDY Week on Durham's first FRINGE. Before the festival closes, read Shelbi Polk's piece on how it came together: ten days, 50 performing artists, 25 venues across town, and a tie-in to the Carolina Theatre's centennial year. It's a useful map of who's making work in Durham right now, and a good argument for doing this again next fall. (INDY Week)

Here's to the things in this town that are a hundred years old and still doing their job.

The ballpark on Corporation Street still has baseball in it. The theater on Morgan Street still has a marquee and a line under it. Neither one is a museum. Nobody roped them off and put up a plaque. We just kept using them, through every decade when it would have been easier to pave them over, and now they're the places you take people when you want to explain Durham.

That's the trick, if there is one. A city doesn't keep its old places by admiring them. It keeps them by showing up on a Saturday in November and filling the seats. So go fill a seat.

Much love, Durham. 🐂

— Michael & Anne · Written from Trinity Park ☕

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