i realize this may be pointless to argue..but i guarantee you right now that there's no way a majority of Houstonians would say they want it open after the success of this team in the playoffs so far with it closed. no way in hell. even the national media was on MLB today for this. i heard Rome crack on them...Mike & Mike...the crappy guys after Mike & Mike.
As evidenced by the majority of responses in this thread right? Seems to me we open it, we get to play indoors on real grass something we cuoldn't do in our previous domed stadium.
This I agree with, but I believe other factors are more significant than you rerpresent. That's fine, as long as we can disagree without insulting each other's intelligence. BTW, the roof moves so the grass can get sunlight.
Also, since MLB is basically copping out of this by saying they are simply going by what was the Astros "standard operating procedure" throughout the season (if its hot, close it... if not, open it)... all the Astros have to do is OFFICIALLY make it known that they will have the roof shut for all playoff games, regardless. Either that, or they could pray for rain... either way, we now have our official scapegoat if we lose at home... even if we're not the better team.
A bunch of kids were just doing the same thing on Fox. Who are these people vampires? One thing is for sure the last thing the Astros needed was a silly distraction.
Phil garner is PISSED. He was saying "This is a tragesty or something. to our fans" and to the ballclub. Solomon is a greedy somebitch.
Personally, I much prefer outdoor baseball... but if the Astros feel it gives them an advantage, and if the players themselves are more comfortable with it... I'm going to support that as well. Because in the end, I'm happier with the Astros being comfortable, and giving them a better chance at winning, than I am about the ballpark looking good on tv. Also, it bares mentioning.... dome teams are pretty awesome in the World Series.
Yes, but then techinically, the White Sox could play the game out of protest if they lose... and I'm sure MLB (who will be mad as hell) would support them.
i've listened to the national sports media opinion on this issue and not once have a i heard them side with the mlb on this. gammons, kruk, reynolds, patrick, and rome are on the astros side on this. even paul kornerko thinks it's ridiculous for mlb to tell the astros to close the roof, and went on to say that his team had home field advantage with the elements in chicago and the astros should now be allowed to have their home field advantage with the roof closed so apparently the only people who want the roof open is bud selig, whitesok fans, and one mlb official on espn who said and i quote 'we want to level the playing field'
Actually they can only play out of protest on official rules, and this is far from that... no where in the rulebook does it say "roof must be open if it is nice outside".
As you know, baseball players tend to be a very superstitious lot. If they think having the roof closed gives them an advantage, then it "gives them an advantage." That being the case, regardless of the weather, I am all for keeping the damn thing closed. And MLB has no damned business telling the team and the city whether or not we can have it closed. Seems pretty open and shut to me. edit: Just keep it closed and call their bluff. To hell with it. This is ludicrous.
It's a travshamockery! Personally, I don't see why everybody is making such a big deal about it... oh well, at least the fans will have somebody to blame besides the umps if the Astros lose...
They've also overshadowed what should have been a historic event in Houston (the first World Series game in Texas ever)... now, every single news broadcast, including sportscenter, has been about the roof... and no doubt, they're going to spend all of the pre-game on Fox talking about it as well. If they had decided to keep it closed, it would have been a blip on the screen... hardly mentioned... just like it was hardly mentioned in the NLDS and NLCS (minus the default one sideline report each game).
All they had to do was either 1) Get over themselves and leave the thing shut 2) *ASK*. Either of those two, and the story wouldn't be nearly what it is. Had they *asked* the Astros, it wouldn't go down like this.
I still say (sorry for the redundancy) that they should close the roof and place this picture *huge* on the roof so the blimp can give Selig a Texas-sized snapshot of our opinion:
Well, they didn't do 2.) because they already knew what the Astros answer would be. The countless quotes and soundclips from Garner, and other Astros players, talking about how having the roof closed helps the team because of the noise factor during the NLDS and NLCS clearly didn't help this team at all. In fact, that Soloman guy is adamant about how the Astros never used "competitive advantage" as a set criteria during the season, and thus they shouldn't be able to now. Frankly, that's stupid... simply because teams make mid-season adjustments to how the grass is cut, or what sort of music/taunting scoreboard chants are played during the game all the time... and there's normally nothing that MLB can do about it (even if it is the playoffs). MLB is treating this like its supposed to be a neutral-site game... THAT is what is so annoying about it.
