Minute Maid Park
From Ballpark Roadtrip
Minute Maid Park
Minnesota Twins @ Houston Astros
June 22, 2006
Contents |
The Road Trip
The anchor ballpark on the 2006 trip just happens to also round out the Texas teams. We piled into the van and head south again toward Houston. We made it about 200 yards before pulling into a Steak n' Shake for "brunch". After making a pit stop to stock up on DVD's, we were all set to cruise the last leg to Jarryd's house.
The Park
Minute Maid Park (formerly Enron Field), is one of the latest members of what seems to us to be the "Eclectic Stadium" era. The ballpark boasts several feature reminiscent of other ballparks. One of the more common featured shared by these type ballparks is the retractable roof. Houston can get pretty steamy, so they often have the roof closed (as was the case for our visit) to avoid the heat, humidity and the rogue thunderstorm. Straight away center field has a graded, uphill incline similar to that formerly found at Fenway Park known as "Duffy's Cliff". There's a 19th centrury replica train rigged up on the ledge above left field, towing a car full of oversized pumpkins or oranges. Presumably they're oranges given that it's Minute Maid Park and they're fairly synonomous with orange juice. Minute Maid Park also has the only flagpole in-play.
The team store was pretty decent. They had a wide variety of items and it wasn't hard to find stuff. They had an overstocking of "Return of the Rocket" paraphernalia since it was Roger Clemens' first start that season. Clemens' return was tenuous since he wasn't offered arbitration in the off-season. This precipitated the late signing and late start for him, but it didn't stop the Astros from cashing in on the unique situation and all the hype it generated. They even gave out free posters of the Rocket to all the fans that night commemorating his return.
Signature food?? Was there one?
The Game
"The Return of The Rocket" was what the game was dubbed. I don't know how we tend to end up with prime games like this while on the roadtrip, but something unique tends to happen. We can solidly claim that we planned the trip schedule way before Rocket decided to make his highly marketable return. In fact, his return was kinda bitter sweet as we were excited to be part of the action, but we ended up getting boned on the tickets as a result. A typical game at Minute Maid in the 2006 season would be an open and shut case of walking up to the ticket window and grabbing seats or scalping off the local hobo. In contrast, this game ended up being the most highly attended game in the history of Minute Maid Park to date.
Pros: Got to see Clemens' return
Cons: They sing that "deep in the heart of Texas" song
