Minute Maid Park, Houston (MLB #7 - Here's to quirky stadiums)

 

“How does Minute Maid Park compare to the other stadiums you’ve been going to?”

My nephew Danny, who has been going to baseball games once every few years with me in first the Astrodome, then Minute Maid (and even in Enron before it got renamed to Minute Maid) asked not too long after we settled into our seats. It’s a good question.

Minute Maid is a bit quirky in several ways.

·          *  In left field, the wall is not that far from home plate, but it’s tall, reminiscent of the Green Monster in Boston’s Fenway Park. One of the attractions of left field is the Crawford Boxes, a set of seats  at the top of the wall, which is where we (Danny, Kerry, my brother and sister-in-law Jim and Gail, and I) sat tonight.

*      * The out-of-town scoreboard is hand-operated, and on the left-field wall.

·          * In an homage to Houston’s Union Station, whose former lobby is now the ballpark’s main lobby, there is a train that runs from the left field line to center field, above the Crawford boxes, at crucial moments, like a home run.

·         * Although left field is fairly short, center field is deep, and the corner of the Crawford boxes makes for some interesting caroms.

·          * It’s not there any more, but when the stadium was built it had “Tal’s Hill” in centerfield, a slope up to the centerfield wall reminiscent of many older ballparks that had a slope leading up to the outfield fences instead of a warning track. And the flagpole was in play, in centerfield. Tal’s Hill was the brainchild of Tal Smith, the team President at the time of stadium construction. It was removed in 2016, and replaced with more seating, which also shortened the distance to the centerfield wall, which had been the longest in baseball.

Why do I talk about the quirks? Because I love the quirks of baseball stadiums. If you watch a basketball or football game, or a tennis or volleyball match, the dimensions are always the same. And if you watch it on TV, unless they show the outdoor shot, you generally have no clue where it is being played, other than the advertisements on the field or surrounding (far out of bounds) walls. In baseball, each stadium is unique. If you see the Green Monster, it’s Fenway. If there’s ivy on the walls, it’s Wrigley. If you see the Crawford Boxes, it’s Minute Maid. If there’s a swimming pool just over the right field wall, it’s Chase. If there are evergreens instead of a batter’s eye in center, it’s Coors. The good ones have personalities. Many, though not all, have views (San Francisco Bay, the Arch, the Ohio River).

Minute Maid also has a retractable roof, which Kerry and I have decided should be a feature of any self-respecting major league stadium, unless it’s on the California coast.

The one complaint I do have, though, is the acoustics. I complained in the middle of the game that I hadn’t understood a single word over the PA system all night. My brother disagreed – he thought he’d understood at least five words.  

So how does Minute Maid compare? It’s one of the good ones, in my book.

Tonight’s game:

One of the things about going to multiple baseball games is that you begin to think in terms of the series (typically three games, sometimes two or four or five) between the two teams, and this game definitely has to be viewed in that light.

In the first game of the series last night, the Astros won for the first time this season (after four losses at home), 10-0 over the Blue Jays. What was remarkable, though, was that the Astros’ pitcher, Ronel Blanco pitched a no-hitter. What was more remarkable was that Blanco is the Astros’ number five starting pitcher, and was making just the eighth start of his career.

Tonight, both teams were using their Opening Day pitchers (i.e., their best pitchers), Framber Valez of the Astros and Jose Berrios of the Blue Jays. You might expect a pitching duel, and they didn’t disappoint. The two gave up a total of one run, helped by a total of five double plays and two runners thrown out from the outfield on nice throws.

The Astros led 1-0 going into the top of the 9^th inning, and brought in Josh Hader, a relief pitcher who signed a big-money free agent contract over the winter. With two out and a runner on first, Hader gave up a long home run to centerfield. The bottom of the ninth was uneventful, so the Jays won 2-1.

I should mention that my brother and sister-in-law are now Blue Jays fans, having soured on the Astros when the details of their sign-stealing escapades in the 2017 season, and World Series, came to light (more on that tomorrow). They randomly picked the Jays to follow. So they were thrilled tonight, moreso because the homer was hit by Davis Schneider, perhaps their favorite player, a guy who spent seven years in the minors before making his big-league debut last year.

Weird plays:

There are a few plays that you only see once in a season or less, if you only go to 50 or so games, like we do. We had two of them on back-to-back plays.

With a runner on second, the batter hit a fly ball that was easily caught, and the runner tagged and went to third. But then the umpires sent the batter to first and the runner back to second. It was catcher’s interference – the catcher’s mitt was a little too far forward, and the bat hit it on the swing.

The next batter hit a ground ball between second and third. The runner on second tried to time it so that he hopped over the ball right before it got to the shortstop. Obstructing the shortstop’s vision like that is legal, if you don’t physically get in his way, and you don’t touch the ball. But Jose Altuve didn’t hop high enough, the ball clipped him on the foot, and he was out for interference.