After only having
pictures and no review of the place for over a year, I finally got
to go to a game at Harry Grove Stadium in April of
2002. It's a fairly common design, with the entrance and
concourse at the top of the stands so that you walk down to your
seat. Still, this park was one of the first to do it that
way, so it deserves a nod for that, at least.
Overall, this is a pretty decent
park. It's fairly standard, but nice. It is very much
a small-scale version of Bowie's Prince
George's Stadium, right down to the carousel in right
field. The similarities make a lot of sense, considering the
fact that the Keys and the Baysox have the same ownership.
Harry Grove, after whom the stadium
is named, was a part of the group who originally brought
professional baseball to Frederick in the form of the Frederick
Hustlers of the Class D Blue Ridge League back in 1915.
Ironically, he died in 1930, the same year the Hustlers saw their
last game in Frederick. Frederick was without baseball
until 1989, when the Keys came to town. But, before the deal
was done, there was a need for additional funding to build the
stadium. The mayor put out a public plea, and who should
step forward but M.J. Grove, Harry Grove's son. M.J. put up
a quarter of a million dollars, under the condition that the
stadium be named after his father.
Incidentally, the name
"Keys" also has some history behind it. You see,
Frederick is the home town of one Francis Scott Key, who of course
wrote our national anthem. I wonder what Mr. Key would think
if he were able to watch his fellow Fredericans shout out the
"O" in the last refrain of the anthem, as is the custom
of Orioles fans.
One of the other unique things they
do at Harry Grove is during the seventh inning stretch.
Instead of standing to sing "Take Me Out to the
Ballgame", they stand to the refrains of a Keys fight song
and wave their car keys around (clever, eh?). Personally, I
would prefer it if the did that AFTER singing "Take Me Out to
the Ballgame," rather than in lieu of it, but that's just
me.