It would be even cleaner without the Citgo sign and the Chick Filet mess on the foul pole, but we can’t have everything in this ever promotional hungry world, can we?
Just another photo reminder today that the sign campaign at Minute Maid Park goes on even though we now float deeper into the off-season time that most people think of as the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The Citgo sign is at least designer tasteful without interfering with the long stretch of horizontally inclined architectural sight lines. In case you have forgotten how badly the brown and blocky faded looking sponsor signs obscure everything, I’ve added their pictorial reminder below.
The train belongs.
Why?
This ballpark is built on the site of Union Station, the depot for Houston’s reception of the great and small during the early part of the 20th century in which our town was becoming one of America’s great cities. Unlike the soon-to-be-demolished old Ben Milam Hotel across the street on Crawford, Union Station has a cadre of supporters for its honorable memory prior to its becoming headquarters for our major league baseball team.
If could go back in time, juxtaposing the incoming rail lines where the ballpark playing field now rests, we would see that the parallel tracks ran pretty much on out from the south to the north ends of Union Station in a roughly east-west direction. Every great ballplayer from the early 20th century, from Babe Ruth to Joe Jackson to Ty Cobb to Rogers Hornsby to Tris Speaker most likely walked straight into the station’s large rotunda from somewhere on that track along the area that eventually became the third base line.
How hard is it to remember that this place has a historical meaning and identity that many of us in Houston would like to keep fresh and alive? It’s way past the time we simply tear something historical down just because somebody sees the need for a new figurative or literal parking lot.
What follows is simply a reminder of the sponsorship signs we are hoping Mr. Crane will choose to relocate to either an interior or exterior solid wall at the ballpark, where they will each receive the honorable attention they deserve – and not the growing contempt of fans who care about the view at our ballpark:
The sponsorship signs, as they now hang at MMP, 11/28/2012.
If you wish to let your feelings about these signs be known to the sponsors they represent, here’s a link to an earlier column on how to contact each and every one of their CEOs.
https://thepecanparkeagle.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/time-to-write-the-mmp-signage-sponsors/
That being said, have a nice Wednesday, everybody!
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 28, 2012 at 3:15 pm |
Bill
I really likes your recent issue of the PP Eagle. The part about the trains at Union Station is particulalry poignant. I remember the tracks running thru where the outdield is now.
I made my first departure from Union Station in 1936 and the last in 1954. I remember the 1776 freedom train parked on track 1
Too bad we can’t echo Frank Sinatra’s song.
“There used to be a ball park right here”
After all my years in the Astrodome, the new place liks like a badly put together erector set project.
November 28, 2012 at 4:22 pm |
Keep up the campaign. I greeted the end of the Drayton regime with such hope and happiness only to find this. I’d like to get re-engaged with the Astros and spend my money. I love the new uniforms. But I feel the need to be responsive to my own disgust at these hideous signs ruining the architectural value of OUR ballpark that WE paid for.
November 28, 2012 at 5:42 pm |
For me,a simple Canadian,the Halliburton sign is inappropriate,not to say offensive,because while they were amakingkng a fortune in Iraq,young men were dying.Young Canadians were also giving their lives in Afghanistan.
January 2, 2013 at 6:20 am |
The Citgo sign also needs to go. That area was designed precisely for its sight lines and panorama. The advertising signs there are obnoxious, hideous, vile, and disgusting. They are an abomination.
I wonder what their poll results showed?