Martha’s Vineyard Sharks (New England Collegiate Baseball League) @ Vineyard Baseball Park (Oak Bluffs, MA)
The absolute JOURNEY I took to complete my 2023 goal
SUMMER OF BASEBALL 2023 - STOP 31
Martha’s Vineyard is one of Massachusetts’ most popular tourist destinations. I remember visiting the island as a kid WAY back in the day, but I don't remember much of what happened on that trip (though my parents have a memory of nearly getting involved in an incident with Carly Simon - look her up if you don't know who she is).
Given the large number of people on the island in the summer, a baseball team here makes some sense. Said team was established in 2011 as a founding member of the Futures League (and named after the movie Jaws, which was filmed on the Vineyard), where they were decently successful - winning a pair of championships (kinda)1. In 2019, the team switched over to the NECBL (a year before Bristol), and since moving, they’ve added an NECBL championship (in 2022) to their name.
One thing I learned when I came here: when you’re trying to figure out how to get to 30 different baseball stadiums within a two-month period...planning a trip here is a DOOZY.
First, Martha’s Vineyard is too far from land to be accessed by bridge, so you have to take a ferry to even get to it. Once you get to the island, you still need to take a bus or car to where the ballpark is because it’s way too far from the ferry dock to walk to. In all honesty, all of that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world...if games didn’t start at 7 PM. Things (i.e. the bus and ferry) don’t run super late (or often) on the island (though they do run more in the summer), so being at the mercy of TWO public transportation schedules hoping you don’t end up stuck on an island where hotels are (probably) quite booked and quite expensive can be insanely stressful (I didn’t want to book a hotel for...reasons I honestly don’t fully understand looking back).
Thankfully, cars are allowed on the ferries, so you can bring a car and cut a lot of the middle stuff out...as long as you book early enough (i.e. not in the summer and potentially spring); spots are limited and sell out FAST. I bought my ferry tickets in January of 2023 once I selected my date (the day the schedule came out), and the ferry was not cheap (it also didn’t help that I accidentally booked for the wrong day).
All of THAT aside, I’d liken the Sharks’ stadium to - quite fittingly - Buck Hardee Field in Wilmington. It's officially known as "Vineyard Baseball Park", but seems WAY more commonly known as "The Shark Tank"; Wikipedia doesn't have a page for it, but it does note that it's on the campus of the island's high school, and received renovations at some point (seemingly to accommodate the arrival of the Sharks).
There’s a grandstand with seats apparently taken from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a fairly expansive space on the right side (you enter from left center and then walk around the right side of the field), a beer garden in the outfield, and some interesting little shacks behind home plate; I’m not sure which ones are used for various things during games, but one of them had ice cream when I went. There’s also a brick backstop a la the Chatham Anglers, though the paths around the ballpark are sand and gravel as opposed to being paved.
Interestingly, grandstand seating was sold as reserved seats when I visited (a rarity in these summer leagues) and (somewhat obviously) cost more than general admission. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal since you could simply buy a cheaper ticket then sit in a “more expensive” seat once you realize no one’s going to take it. However, the Sharks are one of the better drawing teams in New England (they've been first in the NECBL for a few years), so those reserved seats are probably going to be used by the people who bought them (in fact, the names of what I assume are the season ticket holders are on the backs of the seats).
Having mentioned the fans, I should note that I got to the game (in 2023) about an hour before first pitch (when gates typically open), and...I was the only one there for a while. It wasn’t until the game was about to start that there were more people, and the stadium seemed to fill after the game started (attendance, apparently, was just under 2500).
MERCH
I would honestly say that merch here isn’t OVERLY special - it’s sold from what appears to be the back of a truck and features items that don’t stray too far from what you’d expect to get at a baseball game. I don’t recall ever seeing the team sell logo baseballs or mini bats, however - just clothing (including old jerseys FWIW). Like the Sanford Mainers, the Sharks sold both fitted and flexfit hats when I came here in 2023 (I didn’t check for flexfit hats the first time).
I do have to also mention the fact that the team hosted the 2022 NECBL All-Star Game (which I went to as it was SLIGHTLY easier to handle as an all-day thing2), and for THIS GAME ONLY (as I've yet to see the NECBL do it since), each team in the league had a special hat (a la what MLB does for their All-Star Game). At the All-Star game, I bought a game ball (as they were on sale) and a whopping THIRTEEN hats: one All-Star hat for 12 of the league’s then-14 teams, and a normal Sharks hat3; getting ALL of them from the game to the bus to the ferry and then to the shuttle to the ferry's parking lot and then finally back to my car was...interesting.
Finally, prior to me coming here, I once attempted to order a hat from the team as they had it listed on Facebook Marketplace (or what was essentially an equivalent to it back in 2020), but they were unable to complete the order for whatever reason...
And with that, I've talked about every summer league baseball team in New England that I've ever visited that played in 2026.
However...
ON DECK
...there is one more team to discuss. They haven't played since the summer of 2023 (which is why I've saved them for the end), but they also haven't (technically) folded I think, so there's that.
Footnotes
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I have yet to mention this, but in 2018, Game 3 of the Futures League championship series (i.e. the series deciding game) was cancelled due to rain delays dragging it way too late into August (remember, the players are college students who have to go back to school). The two teams that played in the series - the Sharks and Worcester Bravehearts - were declared co-champions. ↩
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Yes, I had to leave "early", but the fact that the day started at 1 instead of 7 meant that I could be there for several hours, take in a few of the festivities (such as the Home Run Derby) plus a bit of the game, and then head back at a time when I knew I wouldn't have to worry about missing any critical transportation connections. ↩
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The ferries from Cape Cod to the Vineyard do have parking options, but they're a bit far from the actual ferry docks (largely due to land); shuttles carry passengers from the lots to and from the docks, and I actually saw quite a few of the teams waiting in line for the ferry when I arrived. ↩