The Pecan Park Eagle

Kathleen and Larry Miggins

August 20, 2017: Happy 92nd Birthday, Larry Miggins!

Happy Birthday, Larry Miggins! And may God continue to bless you and the entire Miggins family for all the goodness you and Kathleen and the entire Miggins family bring to the City of Houston and the hard core sweet-spot goodness of our local baseball community and its colorful, knowledgeable, caring for the long season game – and why the round ball and bat heart of summer means so much to all of us!

As easily as the movie in my childhood mind rewinds and plays of you and Jerry Witte coming to bat as the two big boppers of the Houston Buffs during that Texas League championship season of 1951, I will also continue to live whatever remains of my time in gratitude that you and Jerry Witte, my two biggest childhood baseball heroes, would eventually be around to welcome me into your lives – over time – as an adult good friend.

Thank you for making room for me.

Erin go Bragh!

Catch your breath!
This one happened in Seattle for an NFL game,
but we don’t want to go anywhere near 3-digits with Houston baseball.

Downtown Houston Baseball Parking.

Longer than a brief blog subject. Much irony involved.

Here are a few notes on the obvious eggs of past neglect that are now hatching:

(1) During the 1950s, the absence of sufficient, convenient, affordable downtown parking for baseball fans was a big factor in MLB clubs moving from New York and other places to areas in which parking was both available and controllable by price.

(2) In the late 1990s, when the Astros decided to abandon the Astrodome and move downtown, they did so without a plan in place for how they would control the area around the new Union Station site from being severely effected by commercial pricing exploitation by independent nearby property owners. As a result, new independent residential and commercial construction in the area has eliminated quite a bit of the parking space was available in the club’s first 2000 season downtown.

(3) The loss of parking space potential and the greed of these independent property owners has handled the rest. Parking for big games now goes for $40 per car in the nearest lots. A fan can either get there early and pay the big bucks – or else – park 6 to 10 blocks away from a $10 per car lot.

(4) Now it’s about to get worse. According to Astros President Reid Ryan, TXDOT has decided to expand the freeway to the east of Minute Maid Park in some way. I missed all the details, but I was told by SABR members who heard Ryan speak in full before my late arrival, that the freeway expansion will basically combine I-45 and I-59 into and even wider system and that it will effectively take over the parking areas east of the present structure – areas that had been under the control of the Astros.

(5) In other words, the Astros are now drawing closer to the situation that the Brooklyn Dodgers found themselves in 1957: They have a great ball club, but their fans live in the suburbs, and those fans are not protected from price gouging on limited parking space whenever they decide to engage the inconvenience of driving downtown to see a game.

(6) The current Astros ownership tries hard. They did not create the situation they now find themselves in and they are deserving of our support in the search for effective solutions.

(7) The Astros understand that they have to find a solution to the parking problem. But what can they do?

(7) And what are the chances now that the Astros still may end up seeking yet another way to move the club to a further away site – where cheap parking is both plentiful and controllable?

(8) Maybe Harris County needs to step back on that plan to repurpose the Astrodome.

(9) For a contrast, research for yourself how the Cardinals fought for control and protection against these kinds of potential private and public sector body slams before their own move to the current Busch Stadium in St. Louis. See how that plan has spared them the suffering that the Astros took with them like eggs waiting to hatch when they moved downtown under the implicit threat of leaving Houston, had they not gotten their way.

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AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST STANDINGS

THRU GAMES OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2017 

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AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST GAME SCORES

THRU GAMES OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2017

 ASTROS 3 – ATHLETICS 0.

 RANGERS 17 – WHITE SOX 7.

 MARINERS 7 – RAYS 6.

 ANGELS 5 – ORIOLES 1.

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AMERICAN LEAGUE BATTING AVERAGE LEADERS

THRU GAMES OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2017

NR * LOST TIME ON THE DL HAS TEMPORARILY REMOVED CORREA FROM AN OFFICIAL QUALIFYING PLACE IN THE RANKING OF TOP 40 HITTERS.

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