Florida baseball shares farewell tribute video to McKethan Stadium
By Andrew Olson
Published:
This weekend was supposed to cap the 2020 regular season of SEC baseball, Florida’s final year calling McKethan Stadium home. The coronavirus pandemic, however, led to the college baseball season ending in March.
On Sunday, Florida shared a farewell tribute video to the ballpark known as The Mac. While this was the last regular-season at the park, the Gators were on track to host games in June. Kevin O’Sullivan’s squad was ranked No. 1 in the country by multiple publications at the time of the spring sports shutdown. Had it not been for coronavirus, UF would have likely been seeded to host an NCAA Regional and possible Super Regional.
For Florida baseball fans, it was disappointing that the final game at The Mac did not end with a dogpile in celebration of a ticket to Omaha. The video, below, includes a few of those along with the celebration event after the 2017 national championship, the first in program history.
“I’ve always been more than just a ballpark. That’s why this isn’t the end. This is just farewell.”
Yours forever,
McKethan Stadium 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/4PS6yO5uu2
— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) May 17, 2020
The park is set to be torn down as UF baseball moves to a new stadium across campus. Once The Mac is gone, Florida will begin construction on its standalone football training center. As of December 2019, the James W. “Bill” Heavener Football Training Center was projected to cost $85 million with a completion date target as early as December 2021.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
