Away from the Grand Strand

Across the street from Coastal Federal Field, Aug-1999.

The park is built in the shadow of a water tower.

Trees, along with a stand of palmettos, dominate the view.

• Location: 21st Street North, east of Route 17 Bypass, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
• Opened: 1999
• Home team: Myrtle Beach Pelicans, Carolina League (1999-present)
• Capacity: 4,324

Rating: 3 baseballs

A fan I ran into in Winston-Salem said I could come down and sit in his lower box seats, and I did. But as I walked the park beforehand, I looked in vain for a whiteboard that contained the league standings and the day’s starting lineups. I wondered how they could possibly forget that. That, and a lemonade stand. They had soft-serve ice cream (with the humidity, I had to eat it super-fast to save it), but no lemonade. South Carolina and no lemonade? Horrors! (On a related note, the stats failed to print on the game-day inserts. We’ll blame it on Friday the 13th, I suppose.)

On the other hand, the park looks nice, and it’s in a good spot. Instead of going down along congested Ocean Boulevard, it’s just off the bypass (Route 17) and right near a club strip called Broadway at the Beach. And the park faces away from the clubs, so instead you get trees, a little bit of the parking lot, and 17 young palmettos (for the highway number?) to add a true South Carolina touch.

I was afraid the park would be suffering the same fate as Atlantic City, with tourists not flocking to the games. The Pelicans are doing better, though, and a healthy crowd of 4700 was in attendance the night I went – many of them visitors looking for an alternative to the club scene. They had contest participants from as far away as New York and Kentucky, as well as one who was playfully announced as coming “all the way from Myrtle Beach, S.C.”.