Bill Miller won't be at the last regular-season baseball game at Ernie Shore Field, but he was at the first -- and he has the ticket stub to prove it.
Miller was among the 3,000 who watched the Winston-Salem Twins lose 9-3 to the Wilson Phillies on April 23, 1956.
"I was 15 years old and there with my dad," said Miller, now 67 and a part-time security guard at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. "I remember it being cold, and I remember the grass was just coming in, and you really couldn't tell there was much grass out there."
The Winston-Salem Warthogs will play their last regular-season game at Ernie Shore at 7 p.m. today against the Kinston Indians. Instead of watching baseball, Miller will be at BB&T Field for the opening of Deacon Tower and to watch television coverage of the Wake Forest-Baylor football game.
Ernie Shore Field, the third-oldest stadium in the Carolina League behind Kinston's Grainger Field (1949) and Lynchburg City Stadium (1939), will become Wake Forest's home field next season. The Warthogs will change nicknames and move to a new downtown ballpark next April.
Miller said he had a moment he has never forgotten when he saw the Ernie Shore diamond for the first time.
"It was just tremendous because of the way the field kind of glistened, even if it was cold," he said.
Otherwise, he doesn't remember many details of the game but does remember that the first game at Ernie Shore was played later than scheduled because of rain. The original opener was scheduled for April 19, against the High Point/Thomasville Hi-Toms, but that series was played in High Point because of wet grounds.
"It was a big thing back then when the stadium opened. and a lot of people were excited," Miller said. "It was just a happening … and for some reason I kept the ticket stub all these years."
He put the ticket stub into a scrapbook and it stayed there until he rediscovered it this year.
When Miller was a teen-ager, his family lived on Patterson Avenue, and he could walk to the games.
"The stadium was close to our house, and I naturally loved baseball," said Miller, who played on the baseball team at old Hanes High School.
"I went to a lot of games in the 60s and 70s, but I haven't been to many lately."
Lee Peterson of Clemmons, who will be 88 next month, remembers a lot about the first season at Ernie Shore. He was the Twins' manager for the second half of the '56 season, after George Hausman was fired July 21.
"I remember we didn't get much better once I took over," said Peterson, who plans to attend tonight's game. "I didn't do much better after I took over for George."
The Twins ended up in last place in an eight-team league that season.
Peterson said he's not that broken up about the Warthogs' move.
"I'd like to pitch at that new stadium," he joked. "I guess that's progress, and you can't stand in the way of that. I'm sure I'll get a little nostalgic, but that's OK."
■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.
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