Chatham Anglers (Cape Cod Baseball League) @ Veterans Field (Chatham, MA)

One of the crown jewels of pre-professional baseball IMO

*This trip occurred on July 3, 2025. For more on the Cape Cod Baseball League, I wrote about it here, and I personally recommend you check it out.

Chatham, MA was one of the four founding members of the Cape Cod Baseball League in 1923. Four years later, needing a place to play, Veterans Field was built, and has hosted baseball ever since (though strangely, the team claimed to have played “100 Years of Baseball at Veterans Field” in 2023). They’ve won five league titles, but their last title is starting to collect a lot of dust as it came in 1998 - a team featuring players whose MLB careers ended in 2010.

The team went through several names before settling on “Athletics” in the 1970s. However, a trademark “dispute” with Major League Baseball in 2010 forced the team to choose a new name; they went with “Anglers” as a reference to fishing (a common hobby on Cape Cod) and Chatham’s location at the point where Cape Cod angles northward (as well as keeping the “A’s” nickname). I should note, however, that one of my visits here (in 2022) saw me purchasing an old “Chatham Athletics” jersey here (and then wearing it while sitting in the front row during a game a year later). As an aside, they were the first Cape League team to broadcast games; in fact, one of their original broadcasters is Vegas Golden Knights radio voice Dan D’Uva - who still works with the Anglers’ broadcasting department!

This is, far and away, my favorite Cape League stadium; in fact, I once visited this field in mid-August (i.e. the offseason) and took photos from the field and dugouts. It sucks, however, that it’s also the furthest from “mainland Massachusetts”, ‘cause it meant that I was only able to squeeze one visit a year in for the three years I went to Cape League games (save for me having two in-season visits in 2022 - though one only lasted ten minutes). Why do I like it so much? That’s easy: the grandstand. The bleachers here were renovated at some point during the 2010s, and are built into a hill with concrete sidewalks on top and at the bottom, so it really feels like the closest thing to a “mini minor league stadium” (not to mention the “private suite”¹). Another one of the more notable features of Veteran’s Field is that the press box is on the third base side of the grandstand as opposed to right behind home plate (as it is at the other nine parks); given that scouts are usually at the top of the bowl in Chatham, this means that pretty much all of the bleachers are available for fans (most league stadiums have smaller bleachers, and the sections behind home plate are reserved for MLB scouts).

The outfield isn’t bad either. Yes, there’s no actual seating and you’re on a steep hill, but you can stand on the sidewalk on top of the hill and get some neat views of the game. Additionally, since you can’t see the regular scoreboard well, there’s a secondary scoreboard on top of the press box that relays all the important numbers! Speaking of scoreboards, my memory is a little hazy on this, but Chatham was the first of the ten Cape League fields to install the large pitch clock when the league instituted it a few years ago.

I ended up pivoting away from plans to see the Indoor Football League up in Lowell, and instead sat in pre-July 4th Cape Cod traffic to make this visit. I ended up only staying for four innings, however, as it was PACKED - according to the box score, over 4,000 fans were in attendance (it should also be noted that Chatham typically leads the league in attendance each year). I didn’t end up staying for super long, however, due to the aforementioned distance from Boston (where I needed to head for the night). Chatham ended up losing the game, but similar to what happened in the Lehigh Valley, the game actually ended shortly after I left due to rain, which actually leads into…

MERCH

I will admit that the other reason I chose to come here was because I was trying to get their new 2025 player hat (it’s different from the one I have), but when I got here, they only had small sizes available. I did end up going with their Fourth of July hat, however, plus a league ball with the new (as of 2024) commissioner’s signature as well as an old (potentially) game used jersey - something a fair number of teams in the summer collegiate leagues sell (but not all of them).

Chatham does have an online store, but I have no clue how up to date it is, so if you’re interested in shirts or hats, be forewarned of that. Also, if you’re busy buying merchandise (in the press box) or concessions (down the first base line) during the game and can’t see the field, you can still follow the action as the team plays their broadcast at these locations. I find this quite interesting - especially because it didn’t seem to have any delay (as opposed to the standard 30-second delay most internet broadcasts have).

I also tried to check out the Harwich Mariners merch selection after leaving Chatham (part of why I left early), but that game was ended by the rain before I could get there - I had barely left Chatham when the Harwich game was delayed, and by the time I got to their field, players were packed up and walking out.