This is our second ballpark visit of the year and our 19th overall over these last five years. We now have 11 left but as mentioned yesterday, we'll knock off one more this year leaving us with 3 trips left to catch the last 10 teams.
No ballpark tour for this one...we did find RV parking and it was really quite close to the ballpark...we parked for "just" $40 which is what I've paid to park my car in some makeshift lots near Wrigley Field, so $40 didn't seem to bad for an RV.
This is one of the older newer ballparks and was opened in 1994...this was part of what I call the first wave of the old-school new ballparks along with Camden Yards, Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field in Cleveland), Coors Field, Turner Field, etc. which followed an era of cookie-cutter astroturf stadiums...to me, ballparks are just WAY better for baseball than the old stadiums.
This one looks pretty cool on the outside with brown brick and clean lines...there are Texas Longhorns and Stars lining the top of the outside of the ballpark which looks pretty cool. It is really close to the Jerry Jones behemoth called Cowboy Stadium and shares parking which is of course, pretty smart since the seasons hardly overlap and the schedulers for both sports can make sure they aren't hosting games on the same day at nearly the same time. Nice big TV screen above the folks in RF just like The Juice Box I discussed yesterday...quite nice, but not enough replays in my opinion.
Many of the park's features were incorporated from other famous ballparks such as Tigers Stadium (RF roof), Yankee Stadium (white steel in the OF), Fenway Park (scoreboard), and Ebbets Field (non-symmetrical dimensions in the outfield) but there are plenty of other features unique to this ballpark...4-story office building enclosing the outfield in CF and Green's Hill just beyond the CF wall where homerun balls are picked up by scrambling fans.
Going in, I had pretty high expectations...the Ballpark did not exactly live up to those expectations. Don't get me wrong...I certainly enjoyed my experience and we had fantastic seats in the Lexus Club boxes which is the lower seats in the second deck...we had a waitress come by to take our dinner order and deliver it just a few short minutes later...that was REALLY nice. We arrived early and had a chance to get to the bleachers during the Mariners' BP session, but with the wind blowing in and not many big HR hitters on the Mariners, I could count the HRs on my two hands. The Seattle pitchers were shagging balls in the OF and the kids were all screaming for them to throw a ball up to us, but finally at one point, one of them let us know that they were told not to throw balls into the bleachers...see, this is the park where a fan recently died after he fell over a railing catching a ball thrown to him by Josh Hamilton...the security there wouldn't even allow us to stand in the first row during BP without a ticket for that row. No matter, my son and I braved the 100+ heat and it paid off as my son caught a HR...pretty cool!
The food was good (I had the chicken quesadillas), the service was good, and the Rangers pounded the last place Mariners with an absolute barrage of hits. One thing that really surprised us was the lack of fans in attendance...I know the Mariners are in last place and the temps were well into the 100s prior to gametime, but these Rangers just played in the World Series LAST YEAR after winning their first ever playoff series (and second too!)...where's the local support??? They reported 27,000 but there's no way there were nearly that many people there. The crowd was quite subdued too...not much energy...I guess they feel spoiled now and will get back into baseball come playoff time (they only had a 1 game lead on the LA Angels prior to tonight's game so that's no guarantee) and come cooler temps I guess.
That was probably part of my feeling when ranking this park...no fan energy. I mean we were in Houston a couple nights ago to watch the worst team in MLB (Astros) play so I expected their crowd to be dead...but these are the 1st place Rangers...the defending AL Pennant champs...where's the love??? Speaking of the Astros...they have that retractable roof which helps keep the fans in the stands even when the outside temps are in the 100s...heck, they close the roof anytime the temps reach 85...no such technology available for the Rangers...perhaps if they had waited a few more years for the technology to better develop, they'd have an affordable retractable roof too.
The game itself was entertaining...at least if you were cheering for the hometown Rangers (we always cheer for the home team) as they pummeled the Mariners 9-2. Nelson Cruz started off the scoring with the lone HR of the game but the Rangers tacked on an unearned run following a two-base error, a groundout, and a base hit by Mitch Moreland. That would be a theme for the evening as both teams scored at least 2 runs in every inning they managed to score at all leaving the box score with 5 straight innings of crooked number scoring between the two teams. The 5th-8th hitters on the Rangers did the bulk of the damage hitting a combined 11-for-16 with 7 RBIs and 6 runs scored on the night...that's some intense production from the second half of the lineup.
So between the lack of fan frenzy, the lack of any "wow" factor at the park itself, and not having a retractable roof to keep my fan experience from burning up, I've got this park a lot lower than I expected going in.
OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Minute Maid Park (Houston)
4. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
5. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
6. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
7. Safeco Field (Seattle)
8. Fenway Park (Boston)
9. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
10. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
11. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (Arlington, TX)
12. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
13. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
14. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
15. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
16. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago)
17. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
18. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
19. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
Next up is our slow trip back home...in a little over a month, we'll be at it again...we're flying to Denver to catch a Rockies' game at Coors Field in mid-September. That will be ballpark #20 out of 30 on our tour leaving us with 10 parks left to visit...we figure 3 more trips ought to cover it. So come back and check out the blog update following the Rockies' game in mid-September to see where Coors Field is ranked.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
MLB Ball Park Review - Minute Maid Park (Houston, TX)
Well, we're off on our 2011 baseball trip...this is our 5th annual and we're visiting the two parks in Texas right now...somewhat similar to last year, we're going to take several days "off" between games 2 and 3 on this "trip"...we're going to catch the Rockies at Coors Field in mid-September on a quick fly-in/fly-out weekend trip to get our minimum of 3 games in.
So this is our first ballpark visit of the year and our 18th overall over these last five years. We now have 12 left but as mentioned above, we'll knock off two more this year leaving us with 3 trips left to catch the last 10 teams.
We had a busy day planned as usual for these trips, but this time we actually started at the ballpark with a behind-the-scenes tour of Minute Maid Park (a.k.a. The Juice Box - my favorite ballpark nickname ever!). The tour starts off at the VAST entrance behind the wall in LF...when they created this new ballpark (originally called Enron Field - not a single utterance of that name nor any evidence whatsoever of this name can be found anywhere in the park...if you can find one, you get $100 and someone on the Astros staff gets fired!), they started by renovating their old Union Station (train station)...per the guide providing the tour, they even painted the inside with what they think are the original colors from the early 1900s ("they didn't have any Fuji film back then, so we don't know for sure"). When you arrive more than 90 minutes before game-time and they haven't yet opened the gates, you can literally wait inside this vast room which is AIR-CONDITIONED. The whole luxury box area is quite nice and is entirely air-conditioned ("if it is carpeted in Houston, it must be air-conditioned or the carpet will just rot"). We got to walk out on the field, but were NOT allowed to even touch a blade of grass...those were the rules...for which a LOT of experimentation has been done to get the ride "flavor" so to speak. See The Juice Box has a retractable roof so they need some sort of grass that doesn't require all that much sunlight PLUS with all the shadows that creep across the field even with the roof open, there just isn't the same amount of sunlight we all get on our backyard lawns at home.
As I've noticed time and again with these newest ballparks, they have ALL the hi-tech features that are available today, but still have that nostalgic old school feel to them that makes you feel like you're back in time at a game in the 60s. And as I have written before, after visiting some of these parks way back in our first trip, I've completely changed my tune on my hometown ballpark - Wrigley Field. I'd be totally fine if they bulldozed the place tomorrow if they were going to rebuild it like these other teams have done in the last 15 years or so. This park similar to Safeco in Seattle (but for WAY different reasons) has a retractable roof...they apparently close the roof for the obvious reason of rain, but they'll also close the roof whenever the game-time temperature exceeds 85 degrees...it was well into the 100s on Fri so there was no question the roof would be closed for our game and it surely was.
Anyway, The Juice Box has an old-fashioned human-operated scoreboard below the LF bleachers...that's where we sat for the game so I couldn't see them, but we saw this scoreboard up close and personal during the tour...just like the one up in Wrigley, but they do have enough room for all the games (Wrigley's scoreboard was build WAY before expansion so it is missing 3 games on a day when all teams are playing).
Another important feature that we didn't get to see in action was the train out in LF...with the connection to Union Station, the ballpark designers kept that in mind with some of the amenities and features. The train is supposed to get into action whenever an Astros player hits a homerun...with as bad as the team is these days, they might as well start getting that guy in action anytime they score a run...the train still would have only been in action one time on Fri night for our visit.
The Astros are the worst team in all of baseball and they were taking on the 1st place Brewers so I felt our winning streak was in serious jeopardy...unfortunately for us, I was right. The AAA Astros (that's basically what they are at this point after trading away their two best remaining players in Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence at the trade deadline...by the way, there apparently was a mural on the wall leading from the Astros locker room to their dugout that included these guys...GONE...painted over with fresh paint) didn't hardly put up a fight against the Brew Crew and were CRUSHED 8-1. Astros' starter JA Happ didn't help his team much giving up 3 runs in the first inning while facing 8 of the 9 Brewers batters...two of the outs in the inning were absolute rockets off the Brewers' bats that just happened to end up in the glove of an Astros' defensive player or they might still be batting now. The lone Astros' highlight was the rookie debut of John Schuck...he singled in his very first MLB at-bat which was one of only 4 Astros hits...the crowd gave him a very nice ovation after that hit...he then stole 2nd base (left stranded of course) as the Astros left 4 of their 5 (1 walk) base runners on base.
The ballpark itself was VERY nice indeed! As mentioned above, we sat in the LF bleachers 6 rows up...these seats are infamously called the Crawford Boxes...we could see everything except plays right at the wall in LF. Minute Maid has THE deepest CF in all of baseball with the wall measuring in at 435 feet from home plate. On top of that, there is a hill...YES, literally a hill with a 20-degree incline for the last 90 feet or so...and, oh, did I mention there's also a flagpole on that hill and it IS in play? The park has been hosting games for nearly 12 years and no CF has gotten hurt out there...some have looked a bit silly falling down as they all of a sudden start running uphill and some have made some pretty amazing catches up there too...that's a LONG way from home plate!
There is a HUGE nearly 7000 sq ft HD scoreboard above the fans in RF...AMAZING picture quality...it's little brother was above the fans down the 3rd baseline (we could easily see both)...I believe it was about 4000 sq ft but was also HD...very nice too! Not a lot of replays but maintained the batting order including position and number which certainly helped my son keep score on his iPod app especially as the 'Stros paraded 5 pitchers to the mound with a couple of double-switches and a LOT of stats associated with the batter which was cool.
When they were announcing the lineup for the game, I only recognized Carlos Lee (now playing 1B) and Clint Barmes (SS) although I didn't know he was on the Astros...apparently I'm not the only one...their own fans don't know these guys either...since we hung around town for a couple days, we were listening to some local radio...they had a call-in contest where the DJ would name a player for the Astros or Dynamos (local soccer team) and the caller only had to pick the appropriate team for that player 4-of-7 times correctly...this guy went 0-for-4 to start so he was officially done, but the DJ gave him one more chance to get a consolation prize just by getting the 5th one right...buzz! wrong answer AGAIN. That's how it is with the 'Stros these days...
Of course, we also sampled the cuisine while we were there...I had some kind of sausage delight my wife picked our for me that had pico de gallo, jalapenos, and grilled onions...it was huge and delicious and quite gone in just a few minutes...I even surprised myself that I was able to finish it. My son had a beef brisket sandwich (BBQ as they call it down here in Texas y'all) that he loved and my girls split some buffalo chicken nachos and authentic steak tacos...all three of them LOVED their assorted food. My wife for some reason grabbed herself a Chicago Style hot dog...apparently overwhelmed by hunger and too many choices...she said it tasted like a regular "eh" ballpark hot dog with Chicago-style trimmings like relish, pickles and tomatoes...not what she had in mind.
After the disappointing game, the 'Stros saved the best for last...the post-game fireworks show. Since the 'Stros didn't hit any HRs during the game, we didn't get to see any action from the train although the engineer made the big-screen during one of the between inning songs as he was dancing his chubby little heart out to the roar (if that's what you call 8000 people cheering) of the crowd. Well after the game the 'Stros put on a fireworks show. First, they had to open the roof which started just seconds after the final Astros out that ended the game. Well, they did NOT disappoint with the fireworks show...VERY COOL and pretty long too as they were able to play 5-6 current songs during a show that rivaled a pretty good one from the 4th of July. I already had The Juice Box placed high on my list before the fireworks show so that didn't really have any bearing on their placement on my list.
OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Minute Maid Park (Houston)
4. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
5. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
6. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
7. Safeco Field (Seattle)
8. Fenway Park (Boston)
9. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
10. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
11. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
12. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
13. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
14. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
15. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago)
16. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
17. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
18. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
The overall experience at Minute Maid Park was pretty impressive from start to finish...we're in an RV this week and we were able to find parking for the ballpark tour and the game (5:30 on a Fri night) fairly easily.
Next up is Rangers Ballpark in Arlington tomorrow night as the 1st place Rangers take on the last place Seattle Mariners who have been struggling of late as they were .500 at 43-43 on July 5th before dropping 17 straight to go from 2.5 to 15.5 games back in their division.
So this is our first ballpark visit of the year and our 18th overall over these last five years. We now have 12 left but as mentioned above, we'll knock off two more this year leaving us with 3 trips left to catch the last 10 teams.
We had a busy day planned as usual for these trips, but this time we actually started at the ballpark with a behind-the-scenes tour of Minute Maid Park (a.k.a. The Juice Box - my favorite ballpark nickname ever!). The tour starts off at the VAST entrance behind the wall in LF...when they created this new ballpark (originally called Enron Field - not a single utterance of that name nor any evidence whatsoever of this name can be found anywhere in the park...if you can find one, you get $100 and someone on the Astros staff gets fired!), they started by renovating their old Union Station (train station)...per the guide providing the tour, they even painted the inside with what they think are the original colors from the early 1900s ("they didn't have any Fuji film back then, so we don't know for sure"). When you arrive more than 90 minutes before game-time and they haven't yet opened the gates, you can literally wait inside this vast room which is AIR-CONDITIONED. The whole luxury box area is quite nice and is entirely air-conditioned ("if it is carpeted in Houston, it must be air-conditioned or the carpet will just rot"). We got to walk out on the field, but were NOT allowed to even touch a blade of grass...those were the rules...for which a LOT of experimentation has been done to get the ride "flavor" so to speak. See The Juice Box has a retractable roof so they need some sort of grass that doesn't require all that much sunlight PLUS with all the shadows that creep across the field even with the roof open, there just isn't the same amount of sunlight we all get on our backyard lawns at home.
As I've noticed time and again with these newest ballparks, they have ALL the hi-tech features that are available today, but still have that nostalgic old school feel to them that makes you feel like you're back in time at a game in the 60s. And as I have written before, after visiting some of these parks way back in our first trip, I've completely changed my tune on my hometown ballpark - Wrigley Field. I'd be totally fine if they bulldozed the place tomorrow if they were going to rebuild it like these other teams have done in the last 15 years or so. This park similar to Safeco in Seattle (but for WAY different reasons) has a retractable roof...they apparently close the roof for the obvious reason of rain, but they'll also close the roof whenever the game-time temperature exceeds 85 degrees...it was well into the 100s on Fri so there was no question the roof would be closed for our game and it surely was.
Anyway, The Juice Box has an old-fashioned human-operated scoreboard below the LF bleachers...that's where we sat for the game so I couldn't see them, but we saw this scoreboard up close and personal during the tour...just like the one up in Wrigley, but they do have enough room for all the games (Wrigley's scoreboard was build WAY before expansion so it is missing 3 games on a day when all teams are playing).
Another important feature that we didn't get to see in action was the train out in LF...with the connection to Union Station, the ballpark designers kept that in mind with some of the amenities and features. The train is supposed to get into action whenever an Astros player hits a homerun...with as bad as the team is these days, they might as well start getting that guy in action anytime they score a run...the train still would have only been in action one time on Fri night for our visit.
The Astros are the worst team in all of baseball and they were taking on the 1st place Brewers so I felt our winning streak was in serious jeopardy...unfortunately for us, I was right. The AAA Astros (that's basically what they are at this point after trading away their two best remaining players in Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence at the trade deadline...by the way, there apparently was a mural on the wall leading from the Astros locker room to their dugout that included these guys...GONE...painted over with fresh paint) didn't hardly put up a fight against the Brew Crew and were CRUSHED 8-1. Astros' starter JA Happ didn't help his team much giving up 3 runs in the first inning while facing 8 of the 9 Brewers batters...two of the outs in the inning were absolute rockets off the Brewers' bats that just happened to end up in the glove of an Astros' defensive player or they might still be batting now. The lone Astros' highlight was the rookie debut of John Schuck...he singled in his very first MLB at-bat which was one of only 4 Astros hits...the crowd gave him a very nice ovation after that hit...he then stole 2nd base (left stranded of course) as the Astros left 4 of their 5 (1 walk) base runners on base.
The ballpark itself was VERY nice indeed! As mentioned above, we sat in the LF bleachers 6 rows up...these seats are infamously called the Crawford Boxes...we could see everything except plays right at the wall in LF. Minute Maid has THE deepest CF in all of baseball with the wall measuring in at 435 feet from home plate. On top of that, there is a hill...YES, literally a hill with a 20-degree incline for the last 90 feet or so...and, oh, did I mention there's also a flagpole on that hill and it IS in play? The park has been hosting games for nearly 12 years and no CF has gotten hurt out there...some have looked a bit silly falling down as they all of a sudden start running uphill and some have made some pretty amazing catches up there too...that's a LONG way from home plate!
There is a HUGE nearly 7000 sq ft HD scoreboard above the fans in RF...AMAZING picture quality...it's little brother was above the fans down the 3rd baseline (we could easily see both)...I believe it was about 4000 sq ft but was also HD...very nice too! Not a lot of replays but maintained the batting order including position and number which certainly helped my son keep score on his iPod app especially as the 'Stros paraded 5 pitchers to the mound with a couple of double-switches and a LOT of stats associated with the batter which was cool.
When they were announcing the lineup for the game, I only recognized Carlos Lee (now playing 1B) and Clint Barmes (SS) although I didn't know he was on the Astros...apparently I'm not the only one...their own fans don't know these guys either...since we hung around town for a couple days, we were listening to some local radio...they had a call-in contest where the DJ would name a player for the Astros or Dynamos (local soccer team) and the caller only had to pick the appropriate team for that player 4-of-7 times correctly...this guy went 0-for-4 to start so he was officially done, but the DJ gave him one more chance to get a consolation prize just by getting the 5th one right...buzz! wrong answer AGAIN. That's how it is with the 'Stros these days...
Of course, we also sampled the cuisine while we were there...I had some kind of sausage delight my wife picked our for me that had pico de gallo, jalapenos, and grilled onions...it was huge and delicious and quite gone in just a few minutes...I even surprised myself that I was able to finish it. My son had a beef brisket sandwich (BBQ as they call it down here in Texas y'all) that he loved and my girls split some buffalo chicken nachos and authentic steak tacos...all three of them LOVED their assorted food. My wife for some reason grabbed herself a Chicago Style hot dog...apparently overwhelmed by hunger and too many choices...she said it tasted like a regular "eh" ballpark hot dog with Chicago-style trimmings like relish, pickles and tomatoes...not what she had in mind.
After the disappointing game, the 'Stros saved the best for last...the post-game fireworks show. Since the 'Stros didn't hit any HRs during the game, we didn't get to see any action from the train although the engineer made the big-screen during one of the between inning songs as he was dancing his chubby little heart out to the roar (if that's what you call 8000 people cheering) of the crowd. Well after the game the 'Stros put on a fireworks show. First, they had to open the roof which started just seconds after the final Astros out that ended the game. Well, they did NOT disappoint with the fireworks show...VERY COOL and pretty long too as they were able to play 5-6 current songs during a show that rivaled a pretty good one from the 4th of July. I already had The Juice Box placed high on my list before the fireworks show so that didn't really have any bearing on their placement on my list.
OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Minute Maid Park (Houston)
4. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
5. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
6. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
7. Safeco Field (Seattle)
8. Fenway Park (Boston)
9. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
10. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
11. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
12. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
13. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
14. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
15. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago)
16. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
17. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
18. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
The overall experience at Minute Maid Park was pretty impressive from start to finish...we're in an RV this week and we were able to find parking for the ballpark tour and the game (5:30 on a Fri night) fairly easily.
Next up is Rangers Ballpark in Arlington tomorrow night as the 1st place Rangers take on the last place Seattle Mariners who have been struggling of late as they were .500 at 43-43 on July 5th before dropping 17 straight to go from 2.5 to 15.5 games back in their division.
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