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The Kinston Indians were a Minor League Baseball team of the Carolina League (CL) located in Kinston, North Carolina, from 1978 to 2011. They played their home games at Grainger Stadium, which opened in 1949.
The team began play in 1978 as the Kinston Eagles, borrowing their name from the city's first team of the same name dating back to 1925. They became an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1979 and rebranded as the Kinston Blue Jays in 1982. Kinston reverted to the Eagles moniker in 1986 after the Toronto affiliation ended and became the Kinston Indians upon partnering with the Cleveland Indians in 1987. After the 2011 season, the Carolina League franchise was relocated to Zebulon, North Carolina, for the 2012 campaign to become the Carolina Mudcats.
The K-Tribe won the Carolina League championship in 1988, 1991, 1995, 2004, and 2006.
Eagles were a Class B team playing out of a then newly renovated stadium designed by Suggs known as West End Park. The squad had little success against other teams in their league, but was successful enough in gate receipts to validate the city's capacity to sustain a professional team. Kinston's team remained in the Virginia League for three years and then migrated to a newly reformed Eastern Carolina League. This later affiliation collapsed along with the stock market in . The 1920s Eagles' roster included a young catcher named Rick Ferrell, who later had a long playing career and even longer front office career in the major leagues. In , Ferrell became the only former Kinston player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Another player, Frank Armstrong, gave up baseball for a career in the armed services and became one of the most decorated generals in the history of the Air Force.
Kinston's re-entry into Carolina League baseball in was successful both on the field and at the turnstile. The Eagles were able to claim the first of its Carolina League crowns. At a time when Kinston's population was only 25,000, the ball club attracted over 140,000 fans. Part of the lure was the talent supplied by Kinston's parent club, the Pittsburgh Pirates, which included Steve Blass (17–3, 1.97 ERA, 209 Strikeout), and Frank Bork (19–7, 2.00 ERA). Another fan attraction was that the Eagles were for the first time a community owned team, operating under the non-profit Kinston Eagles Baseball Company, run by an elected eighteen-man, unpaid board of directors. Profits were reinvested into improving the stadium, promoting the team, and supplying playing equipment for the youth of Kinston. This arrangement continued through all thirteen years of Kinston's second tenure in the Carolina League, from through .
In minor league baseball was restructured nationwide, with B, C and D classes eliminated. The Carolina League became a Class A-Advanced circuit. The Eagles failed to win any championships during this second era of Carolina League play, but they managed to make the playoffs in six of thirteen seasons. The Pirates stuck with Kinston through the campaign. During three of those four seasons, the Eagles were managed by Harding "Pete" Peterson, who later oversaw the Pirates farm system, and become the Pirates' general manager, helping to build the late seventies team that won the World Series. The Eagles became affiliated with the new Atlanta Braves during and , under the management of Andy Pafko. From through the Eagles were affiliation with the New York Yankees; the fans saw a lot of future all-stars pass through the city including a young Ron Guidry who would soon establish himself as one of the best in the American League.
During the 1970s the popularity of minor league baseball reached its lowest point and the attendance in Kinston fell to only 30,000 for the season. The city needed a revival of interest, and the Montreal Expos were turned to for help. The young Montreal franchise boasted a strong Farm team with a lot of talent. So much talent in fact, that they decided to experiment with having two High A affiliates. Instead of dividing the players evenly between the two, all the top players were placed in the West Palm Beach club, while the newly renamed Kinston Expos had to make do with castoffs. The Kinston team soon found itself overmatched among its Carolina League rivals. The Expos fell to last place and attendance fell to only 27,000 for the year. Montreal declared the experiment a failure and withdrew from Kinston following the season. With no major league sponsor and very little fan support, Kinston likewise withdrew from the league.
Former airline pilot Ray Kuhlman brought minor league baseball back to Kinston by investing in a Carolina League franchise in the late seventies. The renamed Kinston Eagles flew unaffiliated in their first season back in the circuit in . By the next campaign, they were associated with the Toronto Blue Jays, which remained with Kinston for seven years where the team eventually took on the Blue Jays name in 1979. Kinston did not win any championships during the Blue Jays years. Kuhlman and his wife, Ruth, ran the team themselves and saw steady annual increases in attendance each season. The couple brought in a string of successful marketing ideas for the team which took hold and remained to this day. These included increasing promotional days, fireworks displays, the introduction of yearly Kinston , an increase in branded souvenir merchandise, the establishment of the Kinston Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, and the hiring of a team mascot. Another fan attraction was a collection of future major league stars including Pat Borders, Tony Fernández, Cecil Fielder, Nelson Liriano, Fred McGriff and David Wells.
Following the season, the Blue Jays dropped Kinston as a franchise, and professional baseball in the city seemed to be in doubt once again. There was talk of moving the franchise to Charles County, Maryland, but the city remained in the Carolina League with an independent ball club that took on the Eagles name. proved to be disappointing in the standings and at the gate, and talk of a move was renewed, but ownership secured an affiliation with the Cleveland Indians during the off season. For twenty-five years, Cleveland and the KTribe, as they came to be known, enjoyed a successful partnership which produced seventeen playoff appearances and five Carolina League championships (, , , and ). The value of the team has risen along with its onfield success. In , Kuhlman sold the team for $100,000. The franchise was sold again in for $225,000, then changed hands again in for $750,000. The team's value in was estimated at $1.5 million.
Six figure attendance totals became the norm throughout the 1990s and into the new century. General Manager North Johnson fostered closer bonds with the mayor's office and helped create the Mayor's Committee for Professional Baseball in . Dedicated to increasing season ticket sales and promoting ties with businesses, the committee accomplished much in a short span of time. Attendance increased by nearly twenty thousand in and by more than twelve thousand the following year. By , the number of fans through the turnstiles topped 100,000 for the first time since . Although a new ownership group purchased the franchise in , continuity in day-to-day operations was maintained through general manager North Johnson, and front office mainstay Shari Massengill who took over the reins in . The local government's dedication to keeping baseball in Kinston is evidenced by extensive new renovations to the ballpark.
The Kinston Indians were last managed by Aaron Holbert, a former major league infielder. Their General Manager through the 2010 season, Shari Massengill, and former Assistant General Manager, Jessie Hays, made up the only all-female General Manager/Assistant General Manager team in the Minor Leagues. When Hays departed for the 2008 season, her replacement, Janell Bullock, was also female. The final GM was Benjamin Jones, who was previously employed by the Wilson Tobs.
In , the Indians won the Southern Division crown for both halves of the year, but they lost in the first round of the playoffs to the wild card team, the Salem Avalanche. It was the seventh consecutive season the Indians made the post season, which is a new Carolina League record formerly held by the Burlington Bees (–). It was the second time a Kinston team had accomplished this feat as the Kinston Eagles of the Coastal Plain League also made it to seven consecutive post seasons (–). Kinston's player development contract with Cleveland ended following the 2011 season. In 2012, the franchise moved to Zebulon, North Carolina and was renamed the Carolina Mudcats.
On August 22, 2016, the Texas Rangers announced plans to bring a minor league team back to Kinston. The yet-to-be-named Class A-Advanced team will join the Carolina League starting in the 2017 season. On November 2, the team announced that the new name would be the name that they trademarked on August 15, Down East Wood Ducks.
Steve Olin was a right-handed submarining relief pitcher for Kinston who had moved up to the Cleveland Indians. He was killed in a boating accident during spring training of 1993 in Winter Haven, Florida. The boat he was in struck a pier, killing him and fellow reliever Tim Crews and seriously injuring Bob Ojeda. Kinston's annual award for Pitcher of the Year was named in his honor.
The award given each year to the player who had to overcome the greatest adversity in his career was named in honor of Tex Drake. Drake was one of the for the Kinston Blue Jays starting with the season. On the last day of the campaign, he found out that he had Hodgkin's Disease which had advanced to all four stages. The club president, Gary Fitzpatrick, arranged for Drake to work as a batboy for the last three home games of the Toronto Blue Jays season. Once back in Kinston, Drake was able to overcome his cancer through chemotherapy and return to his duties on the field.
The Kinston player who best represented good sportsmanship was given an award named for Steve Gaydek. Gaydek was a former member of the club's Board of Directors who became a lifelong fan of Kinston's baseball teams. He attended every home game for over twenty years even though he lived over thirty miles from the ballpark.
Lewis B. "Mac" McAvery was the head groundskeeper from to his death in . In honor of his accomplishments, the team established an award in his name to be given to the individual who has done the most to "preserve and enhance" professional baseball in Kinston.
During the days when Kinston was a Toronto Blue Jays affiliate, the team had a bird mascot named B.J. manager Dennis Holmberg once resorted to dressing up in the mascot's costume so that he could return to the dugout undetected after being ejected from a game. For the season, the Blue Jays had a dozen teenage girls, known as the Golden Corral Lady Jays, in the stadium. This experiment only lasted the one season.
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost League Finals |
| League Champs |
| Lost League Finals |
| League Champs |
| Lost in 1st round |
| League Champs |
| Lost League Finals |
| Lost League Finals |
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost League Finals |
| Lost in 1st round |
| League Champs |
| Lost League Finals |
| League Champs |
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost in 1st round |
| Lost League Finals |
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