Ocean State Waves (New England Collegiate Baseball League) @ Old Mountain Field (South Kingstown, RI)
A VERY quick look at a smaller team
SUMMER OF BASEBALL 2023: STOP 8
Truth be told, the Waves are one of the reasons I was super hesitant to post my "old" baseball posts from 2023 for several reasons:
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There's not much to say about their history: they were founded in 2013 and haven't won a championship. They've been to the finals twice (in back to back years), but were swept both times by the same team.
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They play in a public park that's fairly similar to Danbury but without a nearby school building (though it apparently opened in 1938 according to the town it's in1). When I visited, there wasn't a ton to speak about: a small and old concession stand, plus a parking lot that was often rather full when I arrived (close to game time) and SUPER limited bleacher seating (in short: SUPER lowkey).
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The field is getting a MASSIVE facelift right now with a new bleacher set up and concessions building, so it's likely that if I ever find myself back here, it'll be a VERY different experience. Again, part of why these are going up now is because revisits in the future are INCREDIBLY up in the air (especially as many of the places - this included - are quite remote), so I'll just have to see what happens from afar (though the renderings I saw look impressive).
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A neat segue into what might just be the most common word in these posts:
MERCH
Back in the day, tickets and merchandise were sold at the same table just outside the field in the parking lot. From my visits, I got the impression that the team apparently doesn’t order a lot of hats, as the times I’ve gone have featured very few hats available for sale, and the biggest one I’ve seen (outside of a special All-Star hat) is two sizes smaller than what I typically get but somehow fits fine (Ocean State is one of a few teams in New England that exclusively orders fitted hats instead of flexfits along with nearby Newport - or at least they only had fitteds when I visited). It's actually due to this relative lack of hats that I ended up at more Waves games than Gulls games during my time exploring the summer leagues(plus the whole "buying merch without a ticket" thing I did in Newport).
Given the scope of the upcoming renovation, it'll be interesting to see how they handle merchandise in the future (as - in case you somehow missed it earlier - the renovation is adding a whole new building).
ON DECK
New England's "Sin City".
Footnotes
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From what I could glean, the TOWN is South Kingstown, RI (which is why I have it i the title), but it's in a neighborhood known as Wakefield or Wakefield-Peacedale (which is what I originally had because RIP Tim Wakefield). ↩