Park City celebrates Miners' Day with the Running of the Balls

Park City • Park City has long had a reputation for being, well, a little bit different than the rest of Utah. And it did nothing to dispel that impression on Labor Day.

Drawing on its past as a mining town, Park City celebrated, not Labor Day, but Miners’ Day on Monday. And it did so with a tip of the hat, sort of, to Pamplona, Spain.

It was the annual Running of the Balls on historic Main Street. And that’s not a typo.

“It’s more exciting than the running of the bulls,” intoned the public address announcer. “Plus, no one gets hurt.”

Sponsored by the Park City Rotary Club, the mountain town builds up to its annual Miners’ Day parade by rolling golf balls down the street. A lot of golf balls. More than 10,000 golf balls this year, up 2,000 from a year ago.

It has to be the only place in Utah where there men and women in bright blue shirts emblazoned “Buy my balls” were roaming around.

“It’s a hoot,” said Mike Franklin, a new member of the Rotary Club. “We’re having a great time.”

And it’s all for a good causes. Good causes, actually.

“Everything that we make goes to non-profits here in the Park City area,” Franklin said. “We really focus on small non-profits who work for this community.”

You could “buy” balls for $5 a piece or five for $20; if yours was among those that made it down the street first, you could win ski passes, golf passes, restaurant gift certificates and more.

As you might expect, the kids were very excited about the stream of yellow golf balls rolling and bouncing down Main Street. How often do you get to see something like that?

As you might not expect, at least a few adults let out squeals of delight.

The Running of the Balls is a controlled event. There are temporary curbs on either side of the track, directing the balls toward the end.

Well, mostly controlled. Some balls bounce out of the track and are (mostly) put back in by helpful bystanders; other balls get hung up along the way and not a few kids have some fun pushing them on their way toward the bottom again.

“Yeah!” said 5-year-old Charlotte Provan enthusiastically. She’d been there before, but “only one time.”

The best part? “Helping the balls go down,” Charlotte said.

How many balls did she think there were? “A thousand!” she said.

Breck Houston, another Park City 5-year-old, was equally enthusiastic about freeing golf balls to continue on their journey. “That was my favorite part,” he said.

And he was more precise in his estimate of how many balls there were.

“One thousand eighty-eight,” he said with a smile.

After the golf balls make their way to the the of the track, there was a quick reset and the parade began. It was part pure Americana, complete with police and fire vehicles, a flag honor guard, beauty queens, political candidates, unicyclists, 15 Corvettes and the Park City High School marching band.

A young boy pulling enthusiastically on the bell rope on an antique fire engine looked like he stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

But there were also some distinctly Park City touches. Unlike most Utah parades, only the Summit County Democrats were represented — there was no entry from the GOP. And parade goers applauded as the Democrats chanted, “Love, not hate, makes America great.”

There was also applause for a wide variety of good causes, from Habitat for Humanity to pet rescue to recycling to fresh vegetables — a group with slogans like “Lettuce turnip the beet” and “Romaine calm.”

One small boy wore a T-shirt emblazoned, “Climate change is real, bro.”

And it’s a great parade route — all downhill. And a good length for kids — it took about 25 minutes for all the entries to pass by.

Yes, it was “kind of weird,” as one woman commented. But it was pure Park City.