Amanda the Librarian, our dog Ollie and I visited McKeon Park in June 2019. I don’t know why I didn’t do a stadium visit post on the old Ashburn & Yawkey. But I didn’t. And with our new New England Baseball page, I wanted to go back and do some stadium visit posts for area parks that haven’t gotten their due on the site yet.
To preface this ballpark review, I need to acknowledge that the Harbor Hawks as well as St. John Paul II High School have invested significantly into improving the quality of life at McKeon Park. This includes new dugouts, new bleachers, a skybox lounge and a new and much improved scoreboard. The previous park showed all the signs of what it was – a high school field.
Our experience in 2019 predated those improvements. But that’s not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable trip. We chose to visit Hyannis early in the season and wanted to take advantage of their pet-friendly fan experience. This was the first time Ollie joined us on a game day trip, and he was an absolute all-star. Because he can be unpredictable, we sat far up the left field foul line (a good choice, considering right field was saturated wet lands). At the park, the game day experience was very casual. We didn’t explore much, because we wanted to get Ollie settled. But a simple review of the game would be “a great, casual family thing if you want a calm night out with a passive baseball experience”. And that’s not a bad thing. If you’re out on the Cape for holiday, there can be precious little to engage with. Which is one of the root causes of the astronomical drug use stats from the young year-rounders on the peninsula. But, just like at any of the other Cape League fields, McKeon can be a great place to sit back and relax with a bit of baseball happening in the background.
For hardcore fans, this is also a positive review, because there is very little to get in the way of your enjoyment of the game. Because of the old scoreboard and the (in our trip) lack of a game day line-up card, amateur scorekeepers could have a tough time. The new scoreboard I’m sure will ease those troubles though.
