But we have the Crawford Boxes for that. Oh, and we also have a gigantic ridiculous HDTV screen for that too. I'd say MMP is very unique compared to other parks in the league. I don't even mind having a deep CF, but would rather see a HR to dead center once in awhile. Of course, given the power on our team...not sure how many of those homeruns would come from the Astros.....
you want a deep CF to make the park play fair. right now, it plays very fair for pitchers and hitters.
http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian...of-astros-by-crane-will-rely-heavily-on-debt/ Don't know if this holds up the sale...but interesting nonetheless.
You have to figure that has played into the equation already. No way they let it get this far knowing that MLB wouldn't accept Crane, et al, because of debt. I'm not saying it's a good thing...could be a horrible thing for the future of the club...just saying that this has to have been part of their due diligence.
This, of course, is the very same writer who said the Astros would never sell for even $650 million. He said the top price for the team was $525 million. Ummmm....he was about $160 million off. As for the debt deal...I'd like to hear Crane and others address it. I haven't seen any verification of what he's saying here at all.
Agreed. The part I left out of my original statement is that I'd like to see the Crawford Boxes disappear too and remove any 320' homeruns. Perhaps I'm more of a traditionalist...not a fan of the gimmicky stuff. If I had to choose though, I'd get rid of the 425' flyball outs to CF. That's just me though.
I really don't think the Crawford Boxes are any more gimmicky than Pesky's Pole, the Green Moster or the ladder in fair territory at Fenway...or the fact it's 314 down the right field line at Yankee Stadium...or the fact that any ball hit to the wall at Wrigley is a ground rule double because it sticks in the ivy. If any of those items were in parks built more recently we'd call it gimmicky...but because they've been there forever, we call it tradition and we pay homage with pilgrimages to these shrines to the game. And if we're talking tradition, some of the oldest parks in the history of the game had HUGE centefields, dwarfing what we have at MMP. The park the Sox played in before Fenway had a CF wall that was greater than 600 feet....the Polo Grounds had CF at 483 feet....Ebbets Field was greater than 460. By the way...MMP isn't the first to have an incline/hill. Crosley in Cincy had the same 30 degree incline MMP that stretched the entire outfield.
Fair enough. Other than the 314' at Yankee stadium, none of these parks allow a 320' homerun. And speaking of the huge centerfields, how many of those parks are still played in? I'm not saying I want a bandbox like Philadelphia. I'm even OK with one "gimmicky" thing about our park. But overall, I just think there is too much going on in our outfield. Fowl poles, Crawford Boxes, a 30' vertical homerun line, a 436' CF fence, a hill, a flagpole, not to mention a short porch in the RF corner. I didn't even mention the stands that jet out down each line in the OF that prevents most groundballs from making it to the OF corner which limits extra base hits.
Wrong: It's 309 down the right field line in San Francisco It's 310 down the left line in Boston, making the Green Monster necessary (note, the crawford boxes are elevated as well.) It's 302 down the right field line at Pesky's Pole, and that fence is super short down that line. It's 318 down RF line at Camden Yards it's 315 down LF line at Tropicana...and 322 down RF line it's 320 down RF line at PNC in Pitt And the bottom line is, MMP plays fair. Last I checked it was statistically one of the 2-3 fairest parks in the league. I hear ya..but you said you were a traditionalist.
^^Well, can't argure with facts, which I took no time to look up myself. Nice job gentlemen....I concede. Still doesn't make me like the hill though.
MMP is great. But everyone has ONE thing that they despise about it. For me, it's the freaking choo-choo.
