Any Cape Cod Baseball League fan who attends a game at McKeon Park can see the playing grounds are dubbed Judy Walden Scarafile Field. Few know that Scarafile is both a former Cape League president and, surprisingly, working in the Hyannis Harbor Hawks’ concessions booth, indistinguishable from other volunteers.
But it’s true – Hyannis is the only team in the Cape League to have a concessions volunteer who meets Wikipedia’s notability guidelines, was the face of the league for more than 20 years and has embarked on many times the humanitarian ventures most will in a lifetime.
Scarafile is a legend of the game, and her humble work on Harbor Hawks gamedays is the epilogue to an illustrious career that saw her balance work in baseball, the health sciences and humanitarian causes while becoming one of the most well-traveled and well-connected individuals in baseball – and a trailblazer for women working in that sphere.
Though she attended the University of Connecticut to study biology and chemistry and later found work as a pharmacist, baseball has been Scarafile’s lifelong love. It started during her high school years – Scarafile attended Housatonic Valley Regional High School in northwestern Connecticut, a school Scarafile calls a “baseball Mecca.”
Housatonic Valley Regional’s most famous alum is Steve Blass, the great starting pitcher who tossed two complete games in the 1971 World Series as the Pittsburgh Pirates etched their name in baseball history. Scarafile recalls meeting Blass during her senior year of high school, thanks to the school principal who learned of her love for the game.
“Around about November or December, I got called out of class to the principal’s office,” Scarafile says. “Back then in the 60s, it was like, ‘Oh my God, what did you do?’ And I didn’t know what I’d done, and I was really nervous. I walked in, and Mr. Kirby introduced me to Steve Blass.”
That brush with Blass, who at the time was a fixture in the Pirates’ rotation – though not yet a World Series hero – only strengthened Scarafile’s feeling that baseball should be a major part of her career. During her high school years, she also learned how to score games and wrote about baseball for a local newspaper – skills that would propel her further into the baseball world as she moved to Storrs to attend the University of Connecticut.
“I had a lot of people open support me and open doors for me at UConn,” Scarafile says. “I later learned it was unheard of for a woman to be doing what I did.”
One of the people who opened doors for her was Andy Baylock, the UConn baseball team’s coach of over 20 years – and who, according to Scarafile, throws batting practice to Husky hitters to this day in Storrs.
It was Baylock who was “instrumental” in allowing Larry Panciera, his predecessor and coach when Scarafile was at UConn in allowing a woman to travel on the team bus – an idea Panciera, a “tough, straight-laced guy” according to Scarafile, would not have been open to otherwise.
Another man who helped Scarafile find her footing in baseball was Dick Bresciani, who was serving as a sports information director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst when Scarafile met him.
Bresciani, who also served on the Cape League’s board of directors, was the one who brought the league’s future president to the Cape. He invited Scarafile to report on Cape League baseball following her junior year at UConn.
“He was head of statistics and [public relations] director, and I came back after I graduated from UConn for a second year, and he stayed one more year, and then he went on to the Red Sox,” Scarafile says – Bresciani worked for the Red Sox from 1972 until his death in 2014, and is honored in the Red Sox Hall of Fame – “and the joke was, ‘Please bring me with you!’ And that didn’t work out, so I stayed in the Cape League.”
Scarafile balanced her work in baseball with putting her STEM degree to good use, finding a job in pharmaceuticals. She worked 70 hours a week during the offseason and often 30 hours a week during the season, but was able to balance the load thanks to her support system, in Peter Scarafile, her husband of over 50 years.
“One was the paycheck and one wasn’t,” Scarafile says – the pharmacy was the paycheck – “It’s been easy to balance a lot because of Peter, my husband, who’s been so supportive and also had a very good job. So if you get the support system, you’re able to follow that passion, and I was very lucky.”
It turned out the Cape League was the perfect place for Scarafile – and the Cape League came to love her just as much. She rose through the ranks over the years, holding various positions from official scorer to vice president. Then, with the Cape League’s board of directors wanting a change in administration, Ed Gendron – general manager of the Bourne Braves at the time – nominated Scarafile to be the president of the league.
“I really had no intention of becoming president,” Scarafile says. “That was not my goal. I was very happy doing what I was doing.”
But Scarafile accepted the nomination, knowing she would “do things in a different way” and bring a fresh perspective to league leadership.
“It was a learning curve,” Scarafile says. “I didn’t have training to be president of a summer league. Obviously, nobody really does until they get into that position.”
Evidently, she didn’t need training – and instead of merely following in her predecessors’ footsteps, set the blueprint for future league presidents.
“I felt I could handle it,” Scarafile says. “I’d been close enough to the situations and the politics involved in the Cape League. I didn’t expect to do it for 24 years, but yes, I did.”
Although Scarafile said her tenure was “not about me,” crediting the league’s other leaders – “we all worked together on everything,” she says – Scarafile is most proud of how she expanded the league’s involvement in the Cape’s communities.
“I always stressed to the teams that you are asking fans to support you 10 weeks of the year,” Scarafile says. “We need to support our community. Whether it’s a turkey drive or Christmas cards for veterans … Get out and support that, be a part of the fabric of Cape Cod.”
Of course, her time in the league was not without roadblocks. She encountered pushback as an important woman in the sports world. One early and egregious example came during the 1970 Cape League All-Star Game, which was held at Yankee Stadium, and for which Scarafile was the official scorer.
Stadium security declared the press box was for men only and threw her out – just for being a woman.
Decades later, she was invited back as an official guest of the Yankees – “45 years later, somewhat of a token to invite me back,” Scarafile says, “I mean, I’m not breaking any ceilings at that point. But it was fun.”
She returned to the press box, and wasn’t ejected.
Scarafile came to love the job she had no initial intention of pursuing. On whether pursuing a career as a higher-up in sports is the right calling, she simply says, “It’s in your blood.”
Her rise through the ranks was unprecedented. Scarafile was the first and, so far, only woman to serve as president of the Cape League.
“Take it slow,” Scarafile says to young women who wish to work in sports. “Don’t make waves. Learn to know what your passion is and tread lightly. Don’t be aggressive or obnoxious about it. And sometimes you just have to suck it up, and maybe your opportunity or choice will be down the road. Don’t force the issue, take it slow.”
All good things must come to an end. Scarafile asked a friend who had retired from working for the Red Sox how he knew it was time to retire – “And he just looked at me and he said, ‘You’ll know.’”
“And I did.”
Scarafile’s time at the head of the Cape League earned her many awards and honors. Along with the Hyannis playing field being named in her honor, she is mentioned in an exhibit on women in baseball in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“It’s very humbling,” Scarafile says. “Even when I walk into the ballpark in Hyannis, even now it is very humbling. I look at the scoreboard and I kind of don’t believe it, but it’s an honor.”
She found another calling in humanitarian work. When not working in the pharmacy or in the Cape League, she was deployed to provide relief after earthquakes in Haiti and major hurricanes around the U.S., among other ventures.
“You get to a point in life where you realize, hopefully early in life, that it’s important to give back,” Scarafile says. “My mother always taught me that you’re here to help people. The deployments have meant a lot to me. Peter and I have done quite a few together, and they’ve been a great experience.”
Faith, support from family, and passion are what give her the drive to give so much back, Scarafile says.
“At 77, I don’t know how many more I can do,” Scarafile says. “But I hope I’ve still got gas in the tank to be able to do a few more deployments.”
Unbelievably, there is yet another side to Scarafile’s career. At the same time as working her other jobs, she was a travel agent, and naturally explored as much of the world as she could.
“I can’t even tell you how, it was crazy, but it fit together,” Scarafile says.
She and Peter have been to all 50 U.S. states, and have been to Europe many times, where Peter has family in Italy. But in retirement, the two are content with road trips around the Northeast, and “probably” next are heading to Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
McKeon Park’s playing grounds were renamed Judy Walden Scarafile Field in 2016, the year after Scarafile retired from her presidency. Even so, Scarafile didn’t want to serve on the board or be officially associated with any team. But Peter was on the board of the Harbor Hawks, and so when Judy “started to miss things,” “Peter and I looked at the opportunit[ies they had],” Scarafile says.
“It was when Hyannis was bringing in their own concession,” Scarafile says. “It had been farmed out to a restaurant prior, so we joined … and said, ‘Let’s do this together,’ and it was the beginning. It’s a lot of work, but it’s crazy fun.”
Scarafile’s favorite part of the job is meeting all different types of people – “either meeting customers or working with volunteers so intensely for three hours.”
“And we have the best chowder,” Scarafile says.
It doesn’t bother her at all that no one who isn’t in the know can tell who the friendly face behind the concessions window is. On what she wishes people would know when they see her name on the scoreboard, she says nothing but “just come and enjoy the ballpark.”
And so Harbor Hawks fans have for decades, and will for years to come.
