How can it be just another fly ball, when the outfielder has to navigate Tal's Hill to catch it? If they can't manage, it will be a double or triple!
I did this about a month ago. The tour was a bit disappointing. I was expecting to be able to go into locker rooms or something. The coolest thing we got to see was a luxury suite and broadcasting booth.
Right? Green Monster..Pesky's Pole...these are seen as charming because the park is old. If you built a new park like that today they'd call it gimmicky. Oh, well. I think MMP is a tremendous place to watch a ballgame.
i hate the left field gap where it meets center field with the yellow line taking a 90 degree turn down then another 90 degree turn to the right. that's just stupid. i wish they would just extend the crawford boxes all the way to left center. it would be a bit more hitter friendly in the left field power alley but better than balls smacking into all those nooks and crannies careening all over the place. plus more cool seats.
It would be much more than a little bit hitter friendly, in the parks first year the home run line on the left field bullpen was 10 feet lower, and the park was a joke offensively. Extending the Crawford boxes further out would put the field in Coors Fields territory of extreme hitters parks. Despite it's rep, MMP is one of the most neutral parks in the league right now, which I love.
i know but my point isn't the neutrality of it. my point is the ridiculousness of yellow homerun lines turning 90 degrees. also that wall in front of the opponents bullpen is not flat it has columns that jut out and the ball just does crazy stuff. then you have that corner where crawford boxes meet that wall and literately when watching a game live or on tv the fielder will disappear when making a play in that area. it's just terrible. also the right field fence is too short. i wish at least 2-3 feet taller, as it is now at 7 ft it's too low.
I think it was a good transition for the modern ballparks, starting with the likes of Camden Yards, to try to recreate the retro designs we have seen over the last twenty years or so. It is great that the newer ballparks now have personalities of their own following the period after WWII where many (often multi-use) stadiums moved to more suburban settings and offered up cookie-cutter, sterile environments. All that said, many modern ballparks can be accurately described as 'gimmicky.' Many current layouts are based on designers whims or to make a field play a certain way. Most older fields had odd dimensions out of necessity due to the shape of the city property where they were built. Fenway had to have a short left field due to it backing a city block. The Polo Grounds had some of the shortest dimensions ever down both its left and right field lines, but measured almost 500ft to center field since it was located on a rectangular plot of land.
Everything you just described is part of why I love watching games in MMP. What the park takes away in terms of fielders ability in LF, it gives back in the relatively easy RF (with the low wall). The cheap HR's LF are off-set by the long fly-outs in CF. And, after 13 years, the numbers show that the park plays neutral. Can't really ask for much more than that when it comes to a park being "fair".
Since the Astros wanted to incorporate Union Station into the ballpark design, MMP's dimensions, in a way, are also built out of necessity. Sure, there was nothing else in that area of downtown that would have prevented them from chaining things... but going by the existing city blocks/roads, the LF dimensions are short because of Union Station being there. I guess they could have re-configured where home plate was, but then you'd have to consider the trajectory of the sun in relation to the OF/home plate. As it is now, the field actually has held up nicely since they switched the grass strains, and now we'll have more open roof games this year.
ok now I'm back to being worried about these things again. They'll go on the facade underneath the railroad tracks. They'll still junk up the stadium. I thought that the Astros had to get changes to the stadium approved by some governing body (sports authority?). Crane skirted the rules the first time and just threw the signs up...is he able to escape their scrutiny again? Quit junking up the stadium, Crane.
It's never going to be as bad as it was blocking the downtown view though. I'd take signs on a wall any day.
Signs moved to their new spot in the left field wall. I assume the crane is for installing the pennants on the light tower. https://twitter.com/astrostalk/status/446014381164228608
