“BULLS FANS! Today it is kinda quiet, but we’re gonna change that!”
It’s a slow-moving Wednesday night at the ballpark, and Jatovi McDuffie, 49, stands behind home plate with a microphone. As the Durham Bulls’ on-field announcer for the last 20 years, his job is to enliven the heat-dazed crowd.
“I need everyone — if you can — to stand up, turn to the person beside you, and SHAKE HANDS!”
Fans exchange skeptical glances, slowly rise to their feet and strike up conversation with strangers. The crowd is abuzz in time for first pitch as McDuffie looks on with a smile.
“I see myself as just a random dude with a microphone who gets paid to watch sports and talk to people,” he says. “It’s fun to learn about people, learn their stories…and become their friends.”
After two decades on the job, McDuffie has lots of friends and lots of experience with the microphone. On a nightly basis, he is the loudest voice in the ballpark, entertaining fans from the field and the stands by leading between-inning giveaways, singalongs, and contests.
It’s a job requiring special skills that McDuffie credits partly to his experiences in the comedy world. Before working for the Bulls, he toured with the improv comedy group ComedySportz, and he still performs improv on occasion at ComedyWorx, a Raleigh comedy club.
It was one of his improv friends who suggested he audition for the job back in 2004. He tried out, and has been a presence at Bulls games ever since. He has also worked since 2021 for the Carolina Hurricanes in a similar in-arena host position.
When he’s not at the ballpark, McDuffie also hosts games as the owner of Bull City Gaming, a company that organizes online video game competitions for local kids.
“It’s really just playing off the crowd,” he says about his work for the Bulls. “As with improv comedy, it’s, hey, whatever energy the crowd is giving you, you gotta take that energy and work with it.”
McDuffie adds his own energy as he makes his way through the stands. During the first inning, he high-fives children, fist-bumps teenagers, hugs a grandma, and poses for pictures. Eventually he makes his way over to meet his first contestant.
Kaylee, a 6-year-old girl dressed head-to-toe in pink, will race Wool E. Bull around the bases tonight. She, like the other children participating in the night’s activities, was recruited by the promotions staff upon entering the stadium. The staff includes 15 to 20 employees collectively known as the “Lollygaggers” who make up a rotating crew for Bulls games. The promotions team settled on the name — a reference to the film “Bull Durham” — in 2020 after cycling through a list that included “the party patrol,” “the green team,” and “the steam team.”
The Lollygaggers have several games in store tonight, including the base race, an air guitar contest, tug-of-war, and knockerballs, in which two teenagers each enclose themselves in an inflatable sphere and run full speed at each other until the two balls collide.
As the first inning ends and McDuffie walks out to the field with Kaylee, Wool E. Bull meets them at home plate. At Jatovi’s signal, the runners take off around the bases, with Kaylee heading towards first base and Wool E. Bull running counter clockwise starting at third base.
It’s a close contest. Wool E. Bull takes an early lead, but gets distracted by someone in the crowd.
The base race is one of McDuffie’s favorites, which he says is a little different each time. One race a few years back led to a cameo from five-time MLB All-Star pitcher David Price. The child who was set to run the bases seemed clear on what he was supposed to do, until he got to the field and noticed the 6’5” Price warming up on the mound, McDuffie says.
“He got ready to run, and just ran straight to David because he was confused,” McDuffie recalls. “And he didn’t really know David. He was just running out there because he saw this tall dude and thought that’s where he was supposed to go.”
Tonight, as Kaylee and Wool E. Bull bear down on home plate, McDuffie announces the finish like it’s the Olympic 100-meter final.
“It’s gonna be close! And… KAYLEE. HAS. WONNNNNN!!!!!” McDuffie roars into the microphone and the stadium erupts. Wool E. Bull has lost once again, and his young opponents remain undefeated.
Aside from Kaylee, fans have little to cheer about until first baseman Bob Seymour launches a solo homer into the right field bleachers in the third inning. The 416-foot blast puts the Bulls on the board first, up 1-0.
In the middle of the fourth inning, McDuffie shepherds two young boys onto the field for the Chicken Dance contest, set to the popular song by the same name. The contestants, Wyatt and Yadav, follow the choreographed moves at first — they flap their “wings,” wiggle their imaginary tail feathers, and open and close their hands like beaks. Then Yadav goes off-script with a series of dance moves from the popular video game Fortnite and is declared the winner.
The drama all takes place in foul territory, just 20 feet away from the field. McDuffie enjoys the proximity.
“The ballpark itself is one where you can kinda touch the players. The old ballpark was that way. You were on top of the players.”
McDuffie chats nonstop with fans during innings. He speaks with one couple behind home plate for almost two innings straight, and spends another catching up with an old friend from his childhood neighborhood in Durham, who he invites to participate in an upcoming contest.
First, however, things take a turn for the worse in the top of the fifth. The Memphis Redbirds hit back-to-back homers, including a grand slam. The Bulls go down 5-2, and the mood of the crowd dims.
Now it’s up to McDuffie to revitalize the fans with the ribbon-dancing contest.
The contest features McDuffie’s old friend on the first base side against another middle-aged man on the third base side. The contestants humor the crowd with some Dad-style shimmying, classic moonwalking, and vigorous spinning of the 10-foot crimson ribbons.
McDuffie’s friend, Travis, executes a well-timed cartwheel to “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. After a vote-by-crowd-noise, McDuffie declares Travis the winner.
“There’s just always something neat that happens,” McDuffie says about the games he organizes.
McDuffie recounts a recent contest — a “diaper race” — where two dads competed to see who could most quickly run to a baby, apply a diaper, and run the baby back to the finish line. The dads were racing back after successfully diapering the babies, and one dad was ahead, McDuffie recalls.
“So the dad in second took the baby and threw it [across the finish line],” McDuffie said. “He literally chucked the baby, and you could see this baby flying through the air.”
“It was, of course, a doll,” he clarifies.
After doing this for so long, McDuffie knows a lot of fans by name. He speaks with regulars at almost every game — Patricia behind home plate, Sarah in Section 206, Thomas in 208 — as well as former contestants and people he knows from growing up in Durham.
“We’re a close-knit community,” McDuffie says. “We may be odd, we may be quirky, but we’re all about family and community in Durham.”
Despite another homer by Seymour, the Bulls are still down at the end of the seventh. McDuffie responds with a T-shirt toss, throwing out free T-shirts to the loudest fans. He and the Lollygaggers manage to get almost an entire grandstand on its feet and yelling, leveraging the free shirts into crowd noise.
Yet the Bulls never quite close the gap. They lose 7-4. After the final out, fans file out of the stadium as McDuffie shakes hands and wishes them a good night.
The last person to approach him is an elderly gentleman decked out in Durham Bulls gear. He is joined by his granddaughter, who recently graduated high school.
“She did the base race with you when she was 6 years old,” the man says. Jatovi beams and poses for a picture.
“That’s what it’s all about,” he says with a smile.
Pictured above: Jatovi McDuffie has been the Durham Bulls on-field announcer for 20 years. Photo by Travis Swafford — The 9th Street Journal
