The Pecan Park Eagle

Minute Maid Park, 01/26/13: … Here’s how the “community leaders” sponsorship signs look from inside the ballpark to fans sitting along the 3rd base line. Can you find the train? Can you see the sky? Do you even care that the signs now interrupt the natural flow of the venue’s intended horizontal sight lines to the downtown skyline that fans on the 1st base side once got to see with unobstructed architectural clarity?

Minute Maid Park, 01/26/13: … Here’s the train! From the Crawford Street side, the Union Station memorial train is clearly visible and we still get a partially blocked, once inviting view of the interior scoreboard. (The pale blue backside of the signs shows here from the street.)

For the record here, I don’t dislike everything I see in the new Houston Astros ownership out of hand. I didn’t like the dismissive and disrespectful way they dumped Tal Smith at the start, but I respect the fact that they paid a whole lot of money for the sake of handling anything the way they chose. If they felt that taking a pass on Tal’s half century of baseball wisdom was the way to go, it was their right to handle things exactly as they did.

At the start, I was one of those people who hated the Bud Selig edict that forced the Astros to accept a move to the American League as the condition for determining MLB’s final approval of the club’s sale to the Jim Crane interests at a reduced sales price. In time, for some inexplicable reason beyond these few words, I simply caught up with the idea that, at my age, it might be fun to see how the Astros might fare in the Land of the DH Giants. I hated losing the Cardinals from our schedule, but the thought of the Yankees and Red Sox coming to Houston on a regular basis, as opposed to annual visits by the Brewers and Pirates, completely made up for my short-lived National League withdrawal pains.

I also have come around to liking the selection of Greg Luhnow as General Manager and I am wholly behind his plan to rebuild the club from scratch, starting with the revitalization of young talent infusion into the farm system – and extending to his use of statistical analysis as a parallel track to scouting in the determination of which players the club shall pursue.

From there, the hiring of Bo Porter as the new Astros field manager is the piece de resistance move on the get-results talent level prospectus sheet. Having now had the opportunity to have broken bread with Bo and heard him speak to SABR back on 01/14/13, I cannot recall when I have ever been more impressed with a managerial selection prior to actually seeing him work. Even now, this much appears sure: Under Bo Porter, the young Astros may not yet have the talent to win a lot of games, but they will not fail to put out effort to match or surpass any club they face. Bo is going to have those young legs, arms, and bats on a “running and gunning” pace from the git-go of spring training forward.

Throw in the fact that I love the new Astros caps and uniforms, and their return to the orange and dark blue color scheme of ancient history, and I’m also now set up for a 2013 case of baseball fever as I haven’t felt one in a very long time.

I just don’t like those ugly signs in left field, even if I do know that Jim Crane and the Astros are  simply trying to honor the sponsors who support the club’s efforts to rebuild baseball opportunity for children in Houston’s inner city neighborhoods. That’s a wonderful program, one that all of us baseball fans should support and be quick to acknowledge in recognizing those same people and entities that subsidize its success.

I’m just saying, I’m just asking: Can’t we do the “thank yous” in a way that doesn’t detract from the beautiful architectural design of Minute Made Park? Or am I the only one who thinks that this sort of thing even matters?

How about using the new electronic scoreboard to periodically flash attractive acknowledgements of all sponsors at each game? It’s already been proven in marketing that moving, changeable messages hold public attention longer than dull stationary billboards ever do, anyway – and the signs at MMP are as deathly still and “dull as dishwater” as any billboard most people have ever seen. – Attractive “Hall of Fame” quality, eye-level plaques on the street level concourse at MMP would also grab more tasteful positive attention than those already-ignored-for-their-message-but-abhorred-for-their-clutter monsters in the left field Houston skies.

That being said, I will have nothing further to say on this subject – and I respect Mr. Crane’s right as the ballpark’s landlord to do what he thinks is best for the City of Houston and the paying fans in this matter.

To me, this isn’t about winning an argument or trying to tell Mr. Crane what to do. He’s apparently done all right in life for himself without input from people like me up until now, and I would expect that condition to continue full-steam, no matter what he eventually decides to do permanently in this matter.

I’m just hoping that he is willing enough to see this point of view and to consider other ways to fulfill his duty to public expressions of gratitude in more effective, less obstructive ways. I’ve suggested a couple of alternatives here, but I’m sure there are many others.

It’s about finding the best way to do the right thing, Mr. Crane. All we can hope for here is that you will show us your willingness to listen and do something alternative to the left field signs. As the keeper of the key to the lease on our Houston ballpark, we completely respect that the final decision is yours, whether we agree with you or not.

That’s it. Thank you for your patience.