Minor League Baseball is quitting as management for the Durham Athletic Park, effective Aug. 1, 2012.

MiLB Management President Pat O'Conner gave notice Thursday in a letter to Kevin Dick, Durham's economic and workforce development director.

Dick said the termination came as "a slight surprise."

The first pitch of the Long Ball Program youth league will be thrown at 6 p.m. Monday at Durham Athletic Park.

The league, part of a Minor League Baseball pilot program, fields teams for ages 13-18 and welcomes sponsors and donors.

The league is free for the players but is a lot of hard work for the coaches, who scramble to find donations for everything from uniforms and snacks to dirt for the infield.

If the Durham Athletic Park seems brighter when you're going by at night, it ought to. The old ballpark has a new set of lights, courtesy of the Musco Lighting Co. and Minor League Baseball.

According to City Hall, MiLB persuaded Musco to donate $150,000 worth of 1,500-watt metal halide lights to replace 80 lights that had been in use for 30 years and were no longer up to standards for college and pro baseball.

The city spent $49,000 for design and installation, taken from the approved general-services budget.

N.C. Central University's baseball team plays its home games at the DAP, along with Durham School of the Arts and assorted other local teams. MiLB operates the park as a training facility for ballpark personnel.

"We’re really pleased with the outcome and hope it leads to even more folks using the ballpark,” general services Director Joel Reitzer said in a prepared statement. Most of the old lights were moved to city park ballfields.

“What spare parts we weren’t able to reuse have been recycled," according to Reitzer.

Even if you don’t play baseball, know anybody who plays baseball or
even like baseball, there’s still a good reason to turn out at the
Durham Athletic Park on Wednesday night:

To support the 120 teenage boys who will be playing ball this summer
because parents, businesses and organizations banded together to make
sure there’s a season.

Postponed two days because of Monday’s rain, the season-opening game
of The Long Ball Program will is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. today.

The Carolina Mudcats' played their home opener against the Huntsville Stars at Five County Stadium on April 20, 2009. The Mudcats won 12-3.

Minor League Baseball is not pleased with progress on the Durham Athletic Park's renovation, and City Manager Tom Bonfield has called for an update report by next Tuesday.

In a Dec. 19 letter to Alan DeLisle, assistant city manager for economic development, Minor League Baseball CEO Pat O'Conner [cq] wrote that, "the DAP renovation project is falling short of everyone's goals and expectations."