Keyspan Park is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones of the NY-Penn League. The Cyclones are the Short Season Class A affiliate of the New York Mets.
Much hoopla surrounded the opening of Keyspan Park, most of it to do with the return of baseball to Brooklyn, former home of the Dodgers. While short season Class A ball may not quite be the National League, it does seem right to have baseball played in this burrough of New York and the Mets could not have picked a better location for their farm team the Coney Island.
The stadium is set right by the boardwalk, just a few blocks from Astroland and the legendary roller coaster that gives the team its name (you can see it over the left field fence in the shot above). The original Nathans is also just two blocks away. The entire atmosphere surrounding a game at Keyspan is like no other. We spent the day at Coney Island, visiting the aquarium, riding the Cyclone, eating hot dogs, and then strolling down the boardwalk to the stadium. Try doing that in Lakewood!
The park itself is a thing of beauty. In this era of cookie cutter minor league parks, the builders of Keyspan have managed to create something unique. The concourse is open, allowing the sea breezes to pass thru unhindered. The concession stands are just that, stand-alone structures like you'd find on the boardwalk, rather than windows in a larger stadium structure. The luxury boxes stand behind home plate on stilts, adding to the open feeling.
The stands down the lines are partially covered by zig-zag roofs done in the style of the World's Fair Grounds in Flushing Meadow Park, near where the big brother Mets play. It is very 1960s and very cool. The colorful neon lighting under the luxury boxes, the neon on the scoreboard and around the light towers, and the colorful exterior are all reminiscent of an arcade. Not a video game dungeon, but an old style arcade where lights and attractions would entertain visitors to Coney Island. It's retro and modern at the same time.
The old Parachute Drop, freshly painted, stands beyond the right field corner and is a striking visual presence.
Some have complained that this park isn't easy to get to, but if it's hard for you to get to then it wasn't built for you. It is for the people of Brooklyn, to whom subways and buses are a way of life. And these people are everything they are cracked up to be. They were into the game, they were loud, they were rude in a jolly way, and they were fun. The only thing that could have made it even better is if the concourse had been built of wood, like the boardwalk.
If there is a finer new minor league ballpark with a better, livelier atmosphere than Keyspan, I would like to see it.
