There’s a Bulldozer on Home Plate

The “father of Independent Baseball,” Miles Wolff recounts his 50-year career in the game and how his experiences lead to the founding of the modern independent game, with some opposition from the existing major and minor leagues. Along the way, he describes how the movie Bull Durham came to be made and covers the history of minor league ball’s growth from mom-and-pop operations to major business endeavors.

Miles Wolff is the former owner of the Durham Bulls, the Quebec Capitales, the Burlington Royals, and ten other minor league, independent and summer collegiate teams. He is the former publisher and owner of Baseball America, and Total Baseball named him among the top 100 most important individuals in baseball history. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Miles Wolff
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 185
Bibliographic Info: 28 photos, notes, appendix, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9017-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4785-2
Imprint: McFarland

Prologue 1
1. “You Have a Bed in the Navy” 3
2. Pack the Park 10
3. Victoria, Toronto, Anderson and Others 23
4. Jacksonville, Richmond, Vancouver and Victoria 32
5. Durham 49
6. The Movie 66
7. “You Want to Buy the Bulls?” 70
8. “What’s That Round Piece of Rubber For?” 76
9. Where in the Hell Is Thunder Bay? 86
10. Who Would Want to Play Independent Ball? 102
11. “Let’s Start Our Own League” 110
12. Growth 115
13. Baseball America 124
14. Quebec 130
15. What’s a Road Team? 140
16. Ottawa 147
Epilogue 163
Appendix: Careers in Independent Baseball (1993–2019) 167
Index 173

• “You will not regret picking this one up. More likely than not you’ll learn something new about independent ball and Miles Wolff. You’ll gain an appreciation for what it took for us to get here and, if nothing else, you’ll scratch the inch of indy ball content for the few days it takes you to read this one. I’d recommend it to the majority of those reading this review because I know you’re the kind of person that’ll appreciate the story of Miles Wolff.”—Indy Ball Report

• “It is a memoir that is entertaining, frank, informative, and most significantly, not at all self-serving…Mr. Wolff, unlike other authors who write autobiographically, is scrupulously accurate with his vivid recollections”—The Windham Eagle