We are the Hyannis Harbor Hawks
The Hyannis Harbor Hawks, formerly the Hyannis Mets, are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Hyannis, MA. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League and plays in the league's Western Division. Hyannis currently plays its home games at McKeon Park, which opened for play in 1979. The team is owned and operated by the non-profit Hyannis Athletic Association and, like other Cape League teams, are funded through merchandise sales, donations, and other fundraising efforts at games such as fifty-fifty raffles.
The Hyannis Athletic Association meets the first Tuesday of every month in the off season at 6:30pm in the Saint John Paul II High School Cafeteria.
Our history
The Harbor Hawks were formed in 1976, as the Mets, with the help of former state senator Jack Aylmer after the Bourne Canalmen ceased operations in 1972. The team finished in fourth place in the eight team Cape League that season and qualified for the playoffs, losing to the Chatham Athletics in the semifinals two games to none. They were named the Mets because the founders thought that it might lead to financial support from the New York Mets. This never happened.
In only their third year in the league, Hyannis finished the 1978 season with a 31-11 record, the best in the league. The Mets would eliminate the Orleans Cardinals in the semifinals three games to two and ultimately defeat the Harwich Mariners three games to one in the championship series to win the league crown. Hyannis would repeat the feat in 1979 after finishing the regular season with 33 wins, a single season record which still stands today. That team would again defeat Harwich in the championship series in four games to become the first team to defend their Cape League title since the 1975 Cotuit Kettleers.
The Mets would reach the playoffs five times in the 1980s, reaching the championship series twice in 1982 and 1989. Hyannis would be swept both times, losing to Chatham in 1982 and to the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in 1989. Hyannis would once again claim the Cape League title in 1991 when they swept Chatham in two games to claim the championship. Though the Mets would return to the post-season in 1993, they were promptly swept by the Wareham Gatemen two games to none. The Mets saw some success early in the 21st century, finishing in second place in the Western Division three times, in 2000, 2003, and 2004. Hyannis would reach the championship series one of those years, in 2000, where they were swept by the Brewster Whitecaps two games to none.
In March 2010 it was announced that the Mets would be changing their name to "Harbor Hawks". In doing so, the Harbor Hawks became the third Cape Cod Baseball League team to change their name since 2008.
The Osprey Nest:
the best seat at McKeon Park
If you've ever been to McKeon Park or to this very web site between 2000 and 2003, then you've probably noticed the Osprey logo. For more than ten years at McKeon Park, the adopted mascots of the Hyannis Harbor Hawks were the family of ospreys who made their home atop the park's right-center field light tower. The original towers were removed prior to the 2003 season, but with the installation of new lights at McKeon Park, a new generation of ospreys took up roost in the right-field corner before the 2010 season -- the first season for Hyannis' new team name in the birds' honor!
Ospreys are perhaps the most common fish hawks found living near human development. An overuse of DDT nearly caused their extinction in the 1960s, but they are returning in greater numbers than ever. Our light tower acted as a summer home for the birds, who migrate to Latin America for the winter months. It was an optimal site for an osprey's home; the birds-of-prey resided only a few hundred feet from Hyannis Harbor, their primary food source. In addition, the 90-foot pole was the highest structure in the immediate area, another prime concern that ospreys tend to discuss with their realtors.
The ospreys came to the field under great concern. At the time, the McKeon Park lighting system was still operational, and the primary fear was that the nest of dry twigs constructed atop the pole in right-center field would catch fire if the lights were activated. No such problem occurred in the first year of the family's occupancy, but the concern remained. Worried that maintenance of the lighting system would prove impossible in the coming years, the electric company built an alternate nesting site on the opposite side of the complex. This new pole was ignored by the birds, who seemed to prefer the tower that was not only higher, but closer to the harbor and to the baseball games.
Sadly, accurate records about the arrival of the first osprey at McKeon Park were not kept. The first mention of the birds can be found in the team's 1995 yearbook, which lists the first sighting of an osprey as taking place before the 1992 season. An excerpt from that year's guide, which was the first of four in the following years to recognize the osprey on the front cover:
"As it turned out, the lights didn't phase them. We even dare to speculate that the warmth helped incubate their young. And they seemed to enjoy the baseball games from their skybox. Some fans swear they come to attention for the national anthem."
When the light towers were removed from McKeon Park in 2003, the ospreys built a new summer home right down the street at Barnstable Town Hall. With the installation of new towers at McKeon Park prior to the 2008 season came a nesting platform in the right field corner (see bottom photo), designed especially for the osprey's eventual return to the park.
That return came about in the spring of 2010, just in time for Hyannis's first season as the Harbor Hawks. When you visit McKeon Park this summer, be sure to tip your cap to the team's highest-soaring fans!