Minute Maid Field

The Boston Red Sox are finishing a three game series against the Houston Astros today at Minute Maid (once Enron) Field. Minute Maid/Enron is certainly the oddest ballpark built since 1912, and I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the design phase before it was built. I imagine the conversation might have gone like this.

First architect: "We have this idea for a train that people could ride around the roof of the park. It could do a lap whenever an Astro hits a homerun."

Second architect: "Um, you know, the team is actually called the Astros, so maybe we should have some sort of space theme. What does a train have to do with astronauts?"

First architect: "Well nothing really. Don't you want a train? It doesn't have to go all the way around the roof I guess. How about just above left field? And it wouldn't have to carry passengers."

Second architect: "Gee, that's not very far. You couldn't have much in the way of cars behind the engine. Why do it at all?"

First architect: "Ken Lay already put a deposit on the train, from the Enron pension fund."

Second architect: "Oh."

Third architect: "Now that we've settled the train - and I love the idea - lets talk about the field. I heard there was once a kind of a ramp in centerfield somewhere, and I think we could do that here."

Fourth architect: "Why?"

Third architect: "Why not? It's fun. C'mon."

Second architect: "Aren't the fielders likely to get hurt on the slope, or worse, misplay a fly ball?"

Third architect: "Who cares about them? Bunch of overpaid babies."

First architect: "Would it be possible to have a ramp when the visitors are in the field and then flatten it when the Astros are?"

Fourth architect: "The commissioner would never allow it."

Third architect: "There's a commissioner? Well, shouldn't it be his job to commission things? We'll just invite him to break a bottle of champagne over the stadium when it opens."

Second architect: "Forget it. It'll have to be the same ramp for both sides. Just tell the Astros not to give any big contracts to centerfielders."

First architect: "Now we get to to my real ideas. Baseball is much too conservative. It needs to be livened up."

All other architects: "Don't say anything bad about conservatives or conservatism. This is Texas, remember."

First architect: "Okay, okay. But listen to this. Pinball bumpers in the outfield. About ten feet high. The ball could ricochet in any direction!"

Second architect: Am I the architect who's against dumb things or for them? I forget."

Third architect: "I think you're the sensible one. I'm not sure though."

Second architect: "In that case, I'm saying no to the pinball bumpers right now."

First architect: "Well, if you won't go for that, how about a giant pendulum that swings across the field?"

Fourth architect: "We don't have anything to suspend it from. Get real."

First architect: "I thought you were in favor of my ideas."

Fourth architect: "I don't remember either, but I hadn't said anything for a while."

Third architect: "Management wouldn't want anything that the word 'giant' is attached to. The team from San Francisco visits every year, you know."

First architect: "And how did that happen? We should be the giants. Everything in Texas is bigger, including waistlines. Now I've saved my best idea for last. We put a series of cannons around the field. . ."

Second architect: "You're not thinking of killing the visitors!"

First architect: "No, but now that you mention it. . . the cannons are to shoot additional baseballs onto the field when an Astro hits the ball, confusing the opposition and, even better, the umpires. The fans here would love it!"

One of the other architects, I just stopped caring which one: "Save it for the fourth of July or Republican election victories."

First architect: "Dress the team as astronauts? Give out the home addresses of the umpires? Live video of the Miss Texas pageant? Beer keg at second base? Ooh, ooh, bubblegum cards with pictures of all the inmates on death row!"

Another architect: "Collect 'em all, they won't be around for long!"

Well, that's about it. They never did get to use any of the ideas except the train and the ramp, but they're still on the drawing board, along with space launches during the seventh inning stretch, steak eating contests featuring the players, usherettes in short shorts, and between innings lectures by Ron Paul. See ya'll real soon.

(Fifth inning: Red Sox 1, Astros 0.)