HYANNIS – Rehabilitation work to the Judy Walden Scarafile Field has been underway since August, and the home of the Hyannis Harbor Hawks seems to be right on schedule for the 2019 Cape Cod Baseball League season.
“There’s going to 100,000 square feet of new grass for the 2019 team to play on,” said Chairman of the Community Preservation Committee Lindsay Counsell.
“The field over the years has been deteriorating to the point where there was many wet spots. It was for the simple safety of the players. That field is used by not only the Cape league but by the schools and rec users.”
The CCBL received a $100,000 grant from the Yawkey Foundation for the renovation of the field at McKeon Field.
Counsell says that the main goal of the project was to improve the drainage system at the field.
“It’s really about the playability of the field. The engineer designed it so it’d be able to take some of these heavy rains we’ve been getting lately. With the improved drainage system and new soil we’re going to see a field that will last for many years,” Counsell explained.
“They basically went in and skimmed off all the existing soils, separated them into loam and fill, and then they brought in a base coast that was going to facilitate more drainage, a more gravely sand mix than what was on site, and then into that was placed the drainage system and the loam on top of that.”
In July, the Town of Barnstable awarded the Harbor Hawks an additional $700,000 for the rehab work.
The Yawkey Foundation has supported Cape baseball since 1995.
By TIM DUNN, CapeCod.com News Center
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