Doran Park
Bourne, MA
Review by Gary
Found at the top of a winding hill off Sandwich Road in Bourne, Massachustetts is Doran Park, home of the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL). With the picturesque Bourne Bridge that crosses the Cape Cod Canal visible from the top of this hill, Bourne's CCBL ballfield is on the grounds of Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School.
The city of Bourne’s baseball history is one of the longest of all teams in the area, dating as far back as the 1860s. The Bourne Braves previously toiled at two other high school fields when the team joined the league in 1988. These Braves began play at the newly built Doran Park in 2006. The capacity is about 3,000, which swells on weekends and especially during the playoffs. Bourne is the current champ as of this writing, winning their second consecutive and third overall CCBL championship of the modern era in 2023.
All fans enter the friendly confines from the high school’s mostly covered parking lot down a ramp by the left field corner. A concession stand awaits near the third base dugout before either finding seats in the limited bleachers or by staking out claims with beach chairs. The concession building and restrooms down the third base line match the color and design of the huge press box behind home plate.
The press box is the largest in the Cape Cod league with ample room for MLB scouts in front of it, hoping of finding the next Pete Alonso (2015), Harrison Bader (2014), Kevin Youklis (2000) or Mark DeRosa (1995), all Bourne alums. As of 2024, nearly 50 former Bourne Braves were playing in the Minor Leagues.
A nice grassy surface welcomes fans all around the seating area, including a tiered hill with two-foot-tall concrete walls to sit on down the first base line. While this seating area is a ways away from the action, it does offer great sight lines of the play. Fans can choose to catch the game from any angle at Doran Park, including behind the chain link fence that lines the outfield.
The football/soccer field pinches up right to the left field corner, yet the only stadium lights are those that illuminate the baseball field. Doran Park has a deep center field fence at 395’ away, but with a short Pesky-esque right field pole a mere 315’ from the home dish, batters must lick their chops hoping to knock a round tripper there.
Traditionally placed dug-out dugouts are trimmed in the same brick that is found around the backstop and frames this hilltop ballpark nicely when watching some wood-bat collegiate baseball games on Cape Cod.
2024
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