Ripken the Bat Dog with Durham Bulls mascot, Wool E. Bull. | Photo by Kyle Lobenhofer
Story by Kyle Lobenhofer
ANCHOR LEAD:
Minor League Baseball games are about more than baseball — they’re also about Entertainment. A North Carolina team has a unique animal who fans have come to adore. Kyle Lobenhofer has more.
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Baseball. Manual scoreboard. And……. a bat dog? Yes. Here at Durham Bulls games, the triple A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. Ripken runs the show. This American black lab is a beloved fixture of Bulls games.
NAT: crowd cheering Ripken fetching bat
Michael O’Donnell, Sit Means Sit Apex Owner
We got Ripken when he was about eight weeks old, right after my daughter was born. And I told my wife, I said, I want to make him retrieve baseball bats. And she said, okay.
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From there, Ripken owner, Michael O’Donnell, approached the Durham Bulls. Since 2021, Ripken — and O’Donnell — have been attending one Bulls game a week. You can see Ripken’s role: he fetches bats every time a Bulls player gets a hit in the first three innings of the game. After that, Ripken goes around the stadium meeting fans and signing “paw-tographs.”
Melissa O’Donnell Bite, Sit Means Sit Apex Owner
People see Ripken, They love him now. So everybody people love sports and they love dogs. It’s just such a natural combination. And Ripken seems to have become the face of that marriage.
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Ripken’s rise in popularity is also generating business for Sit Means Sit Apex, the dog training facility owned by O’Donnell and his wife Melissa. She calls herself Ripken’s “mom-ager”.
Melissa O’Donnell Bite, Sit Means Sit Apex Owner
We get people all the time that will just say, I called you guys. I want the person who trained Ripken.
Nat: Michael O’Donnell telling Ripken to sit
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Not only is Ripken with the Bulls… he’s also the tee retriever for the NC State football team and has been to major sporting landmarks across North Carolina.
Melissa O’Donnell Bite, Sit Means Sit Apex Owner
The Bulls led us to NC State. NC State led us to the NHL Stadium series game, and he also got us to the Pop-Tart Bowl and the NC State football team got to go to the Pop-Tart Bowl. So we got a trip down there, got a lot of exposure out of that and you know, it’s just been crazy.
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With the Durham Bulls season getting underway, Bulls fans can come watch Ripken fetch bats and even meet him at Saturday games at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park throughout the entire season. I’m Kyle Lobenhofer, reporting.
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