Renovations Through the Years
Lights were installed at Perry Field in 1977, courtesy of a generous contribution from New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Florida christened Steinbrenner’s donation with an exhibition game against the Yankees that season.
A home team dugout was constructed at Perry Field in 1981, thanks to a $10,000 donation by former Gators catcher and football quarterback Tom Shannon. The construction included a training room and storage area.
“Its roof serves as a photographer’s paradise and the whole thing looks like a 7-Eleven,” an editor for The Tampa Tribune wrote in a March 10, 1981 story about the project and another Gators-Yankees exhibition game the day prior – which saw Reggie Jackson finish 0-for-2 as a designated hitter against Gators starting pitcher Larry Mikesell.
At that time, Perry Field was infamous for a hill in left field which rose 30 feet to the wall. The Tampa Tribune story described how “a left fielder must chug uphill over an old sewer line in pursuit of a ball” and that “Steinbrenner winced each time outfielder Dave Winfield risked those expensive legs of his in the mountain climb” throughout the March 9, 1981 exhibition game.
A construction project in the summer of 1995 added 1,000 seats to the main grandstand of McKethan Stadium, which replaced seating the facility lost as a result of prior construction and an expansion of the press box.
The following year, a $350,000 plaza development project created a courtyard atmosphere around the main grandstand, as well as a new main entrance to the ballpark.
In the fall of 1996, the press box was rebuilt with a gift of $300,000 from Mr. McKethan.
Two significant upgrades were made in the summer of 1997. First, the playing field was leveled and new grass was planted. Second, the stadium’s capacity increased to 5,000 after the addition of seats along the left field line and beyond the left field fence.
Those improvements made “The Mac” one of the best stadiums in college baseball. When Baseball America released a list of the Best College Baseball Stadiums in its January 1998 magazine issue, McKethan Stadium was ranked No. 7 nationally and No. 1 in the state of Florida.
A $13-million expansion to McKethan Stadium and the adjacent Lemerand Athletic Center further enhanced the complex upon its completion in September 2006.
The construction project created additional stadium seating and a baseball-specific building which included a training facility, video room, offices and locker rooms, as well as a new bullpen and batting cage building. The building’s roof became the Don and Irene Dizney Plaza, a viewing deck which overlooked the field from foul territory in left field. Other major donors for the plaza included Gary and Nancy Condron, Rob Gidel, Tommy Oakley, George Sanders, and W. Kelly Smith.
Those projects brought McKethan Stadium’s seating capacity up to 5,500 (5,100 grandstand seats; 400 bleacher seats in left field).
During the 2012 season, a high-resolution Daktronics videoboard was added beyond the right field fence.
