Houston's Minute Maid Baseball Stadium

On a lark, Eldo and Sparky decided to run by the Houston Minute Maid Stadium, home of the Houston Astros baseball team, while we were exploring downtown Houston to see if there were any tours available on a non-game day. We were in luck! A tour was being conducted at 2:00 PM and we had plenty of time to check in and get in on it, so we did! The cost was 7.00 for seniors, 9.00 for adults....and what a tour it was!

The one hour long tour takes you through historic Union Station, the main entrance to the ball park...thru the luxury suites, through the broadcast area.....

A thrill for Eldy was to see his beloved St. Louis Cardinals stats sheets still sitting in the press box from the previous game!

The tour includes the Diamond Club, the exclusive club for ticket holders paying thousands of dollars for season tickets and blocks of seats.....

Diamond Club 

The tour guide talked about all kinds of interesting facts-- the HD scoreboard....It's almost half a football field long. She told us about the Chick Filet poles..One says, "chicken is fare", the other says, "chicken is foul"...yuck, yuck!

If an Astro hits one of those poles, anybody holding a ticket from the game gets a free sandwich. She took us to many different sections of the park to get a lot of different views of the park....

Like the view from the dugout.....

And we got to sit in former President George Bush, Sr. and wife, Barbara's seats. Ain't that special!?

We had a tour guide intern for our tour...she did a nice job...But she talked too fast! Sparky couldn't take notes fast enough with one finger on her cell phone, so she gave up and just listened instead. We'll leave you with one fact....The retractible roof can be closed or opened in 13 minutes and you can fit a 21 story building inside it when it's closed.  Ok, it's coming back to me now, how about---all the seats are angled towards home plate. There didn't appear to be a bad seat in the house.

And that really is all I can remember. It was interesting, well worth the money, and Eldy got to do something HE is REALLY interested in--baseball. Sparky thought it was a great tour, too!.....Bye for now......