McCoy Stadium was renovated in 1999
McCoy Stadium was renovated in 1999
McCoy Stadium is the home of the Pawtucket Red Sox of the International League. The Pawsox are the AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
McCoy Stadium is an older ballpark (first opened in 1942) which has recently been renovated and updated. I haven't seen it since the changes, and these pictures represent the park as it looked during the 1998 season. McCoy stands on the edge of a residential section of Pawtucket and you need to wind through side streets to get to it. There is virtually no parking, so fans are sent to the Playskool corporate parking lot, which leaves you hoofing for 10 minutes back to the game.
When you finally get through the gate, you immediately get a sense of Red Sox history. Paintings of Red Sox greats, all of whom spent time in Pawtucket, adorn the walkways and ramps. Yaz, Rice, Evans, Fisk, here they are looking down on you and presenting the promise of all minor league baseball. Will I see a future hall of famer today?
The stadium is simplicity itself. A semicircular grandstand which runs from just past 3rd base to just past 1st base. That's it. A huge and wonderful roof covers nearly every seat in the house. The intricate latticework and steel support pillars give you the feeling of being in a nice, old ballpark. The shape of the stadium makes for a strange layout on the field. The distance from the catcher to the backstop is very short while the foul ground near the bases is huge. The dugouts are at ground level and simply cut into the grandstand. The first row of seats is a good eight feet off the ground, which makes the field seem a little more distant than it really is.
Perhaps it was the ongoing renovation, but the place was dirty. Garbage littered the concourse and the old concrete looked pretty ragged. The food selections were few and poor quality. Also, although I think many parks go overboard with promotions and such, the Red Sox definitely went underboard. There was absolutely nothing between innings. No announcements, no music, no effort whatsoever to make the eighteen three-minute warmup periods a little more interesting.
So, as you might expect, my overall feeling is a bit of a mixed bag. It's a real nice, old stadium, but it was sorely lacking in amenities. Perhaps the new McCoy has corrected these problems. I hope so, because it could be a great place.
