Shake Those Keys!

Main entrance to Harry Grove Stadium, Apr-2003.

The seating bowl, as seen from the berm down the left-field line.

It’s a high wall, but there isn’t much to look at beyond it.

Chronological Tour: Stop 38

• Location: New Design Road at Market Street (MD 355), Frederick, Md. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1990 as Harry Grove Stadium
• Additional names: Nymeo Field at Harry Grove Stadium (2015)
• Home team: Frederick Keys, Carolina League (1990-2019), MLB Draft League (2021-present); Frederick Ghost Hounds, Atlantic League (2023)
• Capacity: 5,500

Rating: 3 baseballs

Frederick immortalized its favorite son by having this club, one of three in the Maryland Baseball Partnership of Orioles farm teams (the others being in Bowie and Salisbury), named the Keys. The Partnership later sold the three clubs to Comcast Spectacor, the sports operations division of the cable company.

While it isn’t spectacular, this park served as a prototype for many fine parks built during the early 1990s.

The ballpark had no corporate sponsorship for its first 25 years of existence, but Nymeo Federal Credit Union began sponsoring the field effective with the 2015 season. The stadium itself is named for Harry Grove, who helped found a team that played in Frederick between the two World Wars and whose family donated a portion of the money to build the new stadium.

Frederick was omitted from the Major League Baseball restructuring of the minors for 2021, but the Keys will play on as members of the MLB Draft League, an amateur league featuring the top draft-eligible players from high school and college. In a scheduling quirk, an Atlantic League expansion team slated to play at a new ballpark in Hagerstown played its 2023 season here as well.

Getting to the Game

Parking is free, and available both in front of the park (on Stadium Drive) and behind right field (on New Design Road).

Watching the Game

The game is visible from most concession areas, although the souvenir stand, appropriately called “New Designs” in homage to New Design Road, is directly behind home plate, which is also where the press box is located.

Lineups are posted on a backlit marquee behind home plate, where one can also find the current standing of the teams, including games behind but not won-lost records. Names of batters and of relief pitchers are generally posted on the video board or on a ribbon display below the scoreboard. Announcements of substitutions are made proficiently. This is good, as the rosters printed in the free half-size handout program may be outdated by as much as a month. The information booth behind home plate may, or may not, have a statistics printout available.

Enjoying the Game

There is no view to speak of; even the I-70 freeway is obscured by a triple-height advertising-laden outfield wall. There is also no outfield seating, although there are grass berms down either foul line.

The park does offer a kids’ play zone, including a carousel, down the right-field line.

Concessions seemed overpriced for high Class A.

During the seventh-inning stretch, after they do one chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, fans pull out their keys and shake them to a peppy tune. After all, this is the Keys they’re rooting for.