Bill's Journal Entry #4

Minute Maid Park

Date: May 27, 2002

Location:  Houston, Texas (the park was called Astros Field when I visited it)

Opponent: St. Louis Cardinals

Travel companion: None 

Link to my photos: http://cards.webshots.com/cp-30848358-wRRD-album/39440610bUMNVP 

Game Result: Tino Martinez’s eighth inning two-run homer gave the Cardinals half of their runs for the day, enough to overcome Lance Berkman’s two homer game, as the Cards beat the ‘Stros, 4-3.

Stadium Summary: Let’s start on the outside ... for the most part, this "stadium" (I’m reluctant to call it anything other than that, as I get the feeling that by the time I finish writing this, the current “Minute Maid” name will already be obsolete) is rather attractive, and matches the surrounding architecture. This includes Union Station, which really isn’t a separate edifice, but is part of the stadium, as it houses the team store, a stadium-related restaurant, and a large number of gates/turnstiles into the main stadium seating area. However, the roof looks simply awful. It’s bright, light, minty green color is clearly meant to appear to be made of copper that is several decades old, but to me, it just looks like a giant wintergreen Chiclet, especially from the southeast side. The clock tower outside the home plate entrance is nice, but not as sharp as clock towers outside other recently built stadiums. Once you get inside, you see a nice, but typical, ballpark. There was a lot of things I saw about this stadium that reminded me of Milwaukee’s Miller Park. However, most of the differences I saw were things that Houston had done better than Milwaukee. One thing that Houston definitely did better was the homerun fence. I liked how it had grandstands running right up to the fence along much of its stretch.  Miller (and several other parks) have an open space between the stands and the fence along the entire run of the fence, meaning that many homerun balls don’t become souvenirs. Also, the fence has varying heights, angles, and other quirks here in Houston, instead of the much-too-bland fence of Milwaukee that is reminiscent of the Vet/Three Rivers/Riverfront cookie cutter parks of the 70’s. One of the features that I liked most in Houston’s stadium is “Tal’s Hill”, the sloped portion of deep center field, with a flagpole emerging from it in the field of play. Joe Mock (author of Joe Mock’s Ballpark Guide, and webmaster of this site) comments in his book that he feels these are too dangerous. I disagree—the slope is moderate enough, and the flagpole padded enough, that I can’t see them being any more dangerous than, say, Wrigley Field’s fair territory bullpen mounds and unpadded (except for the ivy) outfield wall. Another thing that Houston does better than Milwaukee is the windows in the outfield wall. Houston’s windows are better for two reasons—They retracts with the roof, so when the stadium is open, the view is completely unobstructed (Milwaukee’s windows are built into the wall supporting the roof), and there is actually something to look at through the windows! (Even though you have to sit in the right field stands, and look into the glare of the sun, to see much of anything.) The locomotive up on the left field wall is a nice touch, tying nicely into the stadium’s Union Station location, and giving a mascot, of sorts, to a team that previously didn’t have any decent ones (unless you count the astronaut outfits their ushers once wore in the Astrodome decades ago.)

Worst thing about retractable roofs: The decision as to whether the roof should be open or closed seems to follow no normal logic whatsoever. On this day, the game was played at around 3:00 local time. The sun was shining, the temp was in the very low 80’s, the humidity was (by coast Texas summer standards) quite low—it was a perfect day for outdoor baseball. But the powers-that-be had the roof closed. If you’re going to play indoors on a day like this, why bother with the extra expense that was needed to build a retractable roof? So instead of sunny, lightly breezy, and comfortable, it was stuffy, stagnant, and claustrophobic. In any of the retractable roof stadiums, if there’s any doubt whatsoever as to whether to play indoors or outdoors, LEAVE THE ROOF OPEN! Even if there is a threat of bad weather, all of these roofs close quickly enough that it shouldn’t be an issue.

Second best thing to do during the seventh inning stretch after singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”: Sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”  The one activity that I’ve seen so far that is better is in Milwaukee, where they sing “Roll Out the Barrel” while polka-ing in the aisles. But having a large Memorial Day crowd sing about how “The stars at night are big and bright”, then clap-clap-clap-clap with the refrain in perfect, line-dancing-trained rhythm, was a lot of fun.

A trend continues: Four games complete, four games with home-team homeruns…

Stadium Grade: C+  Paint the outside of the roof a different color—almost any other color—and this grade goes up.

Overall Grade of my experience at the game: C-   I had a lot of fun (although I wish someone for the Astros besides Berkman would have brought a bat to the game), and would have given this as high as a B+, if they would just have opened up the roof!

-- Bill Verkuilen    biggbill@hotmail.com

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