Keene Swamp Bats (New England Collegiate Baseball League) @ Alumni Field (Keene, NH)
One of New England baseball's hidden gems
SUMMER OF BASEBALL 2023: STOP 24
The Keene Swamp Bats are one of the NECBL's more successful teams. They were founded in 1997, have only missed the league's playoffs seven times (though most of those were in the past few years), and have won six league titles (which is second in the NECBL only to Newport). They're also rather successful in the stands: despite (or because) Keene is kinda isolated from the "big cities" of New England, they draw in a lot of local support (though the team's leadership also seems to put a lot of work into promoting the team), and have been consistently third in the NECBL in attendance the past few years (the top two being Newport and Martha's Vineyard).
Alumni Field is, according to Wikipedia, the largest stadium in the NECBL by seating capacity at 4,100 "seats". This can likely be attributed to the (relatively large) grandstand down the first base line, which extends essentially all the way from home plate to first base. Outside of that, scattered bleachers dot the rest of the infield - though I feel like . When I originally wrote a few notes on Keene in 2023, I compared it to Mackenzie Stadium in Holyoke due to the large first base side stands both stadiums feature; however, in terms of experience, they are quite different given Keene (though the data suggest that Valley was once a big draw as well). Also, the grandstand in Keene is a bit more “cozy”, so to speak: it’s got a roof on top of it, netting all the way down, and is closer to the field than Mackenzie's is.
This is the FIRST instance in this series of posts where I only visited the field once (one of three). The game I went to featured a special kids event, and there were a ton of families at the game, but outside of that, I don't exactly remember much (it was on Juneteenth FWIW, and I found a used media store with Chuck E. Cheese plush toys for sale afterward).
MERCH
There's a trailer behind home plate that kinda sorta serves as the team store, and I say that because most of the items were actually in front of the trailer. Alas, as I only made one visit and the team does not have an online retail presence, I can't say I remember much about what they sell that isn't just "shirts, hoodies, and hats" (outside of me being somewhat interested in a jacket that I eventually decided not to go for).
Keene is kinda weird in that their hat logo is literally just their whole primary logo (text and all - just like their defunct in-state rival), so while I do like the uniqueness of their colors (purple and black), the team's full name being on there makes it kinda weak amongst NECBL hats IMO (and they're also not the only team that wears purple and black in the league...).