The Pecan Park Eagle

THEN: Prior to the new ownership, this was the kind of western view that was possible from the interior of Minute Maid Park. It was pretty much everything that the designers and architects of this beautiful structure had intended and a quality contribution to the aesthetic ambience of downtown life in Houston.

NOW: Sadly, this is how things look inside Minute Maid Park today after a single season under the new Astros ownership. In an ironic display of “uglification,” the club has decided to honor the companies contributing to the team’s inner city youth program by turning our beautiful ballpark into an eyesore that is only rivaled by those Houston street corners with all the cardboard business signs that have been hammered into the ground on sticks.

Look, Mr. or Ms. Corporate Advertiser at Minute Maid Park, please allow us/me to ask you something? Do you really want your company to be best remembered as one of those who turned our ballpark into one of the ugliest edifices in major league baseball? If not, then please extend your desire to help the quality of life in Houston to include protecting the architectural integrity of Minute Maid Park by asking the Astros to remove your sign from the blight of advertising garbage that now clouds our once spaciously grand western window,

It’s pretty obvious now that the current ownership mostly sees every inch of wall and ballpark air space as an opportunity for some new revenue stream. And, on one level, who could blame them? Look at the big money they paid for this franchise!

On the other hand, if this is what it’s coming down to, that baseball is only affordable if we turn our parks ugly for the sake of finding some new sources of support for the principal activity, than maybe, just maybe, it’s time for some of us who have loved the core game all our lives, just for itself, to move on.

I personally don’t need to sit in the middle of a commercial for so many other things to enjoy the game for itself alone. If my Astros game attendance now falls off in 2013 to nothing, or just moves down Highway 59 South to Sugar Land, I assure you, it will not be because the team is moving to the American League. It will be because of the way the ballpark and its architectural beauty is being dismantled.

Mr. Crane, in all respect for the financial  pressure that rests upon your shoulders alone, we fans still implore you to act for baseball, the history and future of the game in Houston, and for the architectural integrity of our community’s Minute Maid Park – that you lease from us.

In the words and spirit of Ronald Reagan, we must ask: “Mr. Crane, will you please take down that wall!”