North Shore Navigators (New England Collegiate Baseball League) @ Fraser Field (Lynn, MA)
Baseball mixed with one of the most infamous rhymes in Greater Boston
SUMMER OF BASEBALL 2023: STOP 9
Lynn, MA: A city with...quite a reputation (which I did not know about for a LONG time). A famous poem has been “written” about Lynn, naming it “the city of (moral blunder)” and that "you never come out the way you went in" (or something like that). It's been QUITE a bit since I've been back, but in case it hasn't been made clear yet, Lynn is one of Boston's most notorious northern suburbs (I WANT to say similar to how Brockton is viewed among the city's southern suburbs, but I don't quite know how accurate that is).
As for the team that calls Lynn home, they’re tied for the oldest team in the NECBL with the Mystic Schooners - and have also moved around quite a bit. Originally, the team played in Middletown, CT (south of Hartford), then moved to Holyoke, MA (north of Springfield) for a bit before settling in Lynn in 2008. However, given that they switched to the Futures League in 2012 before moving back to the NECBL in 2021, they're not the longest continuous member of the NECBL (that would be Mystic assuming my understanding of chronologies is correct). They've won four titles overall, but all of them came before their time in the Futures League (three in the late 1990s plus one in 2010); they did make the finals in 2021, but lost to Danbury.
Fraser Field has quite a history to it: It’s hosted a number of minor league and independent teams since opening in 1940 (many of whom were minor league clubs of the nearby Boston Red Sox). The "main" feature here is a large grandstand behind home plate featuring covering over some of the seats, but it's clearly seen MUCH better days: when I visited (several times in both 2022 and 2023), netting protected spectators from potentially getting clocked by the crumbling concrete structure that covers some of the stands, which are kinda dilapidated themselves. Besides the grandstand, there's not much to say about the stadium: there's a football stadium nearby (which is closer to the parking lot than the baseball stadium is), and the entrance from this parking lot was in left field (which necessitated quite a walk to get to the seats).
Not only did I come here for several Navigators games, but the team hosted the NECBL's All-Star Game in 2023. However, I was only able to see a few innings of the ACTUAL game, as I had to be somewhere in the evening - but I did end up snagging several foul balls from the Home Run Derby.
MERCH
Merch here was somewhat surprisingly limited, though that may be due to the fact that it was sold from a rather small booth at the top of the grandstand. Mind you, however, that they still had player hats available, which was more or less all I was looking for (heck, I remember hearing one time that the ONLY had the size I typically get somehow). I also have to mention the concession stand - it's in a seperate building behind the main stadium structure itself, but it had one of the better pizzas I've had at a New England summer ball stadium IMO (I forget where they got it however).
I was also able to get NECBL All-Star game jerseys at the All-Star game Frasier Field held in 2023 - though I'm not sure how I feel about them being shirseys with the "headspoon piping" that teams such as the Boston Red Sox have (without the buttons).