Going into Minute Maid Park, I expected a lot of heckling to which my response would be to cry which would make them feel uncomfortable and bad, so I'd be coming out ahead. Fortunately, I only got two small comments about not wanting the Mariners to win so my plan would have to stay in my back pocket. Why did I expect extra heckling at this game? The Mariners happened to be in town playing the Astros and the Mariners are currently (at time of posting this) in 1st place! Due to a problem with our initial plans, we ended up taking a pre-game stadium tour, so we learned a lot about the Astros' history and the stadium. The main entrance to Minute Maid Park is built inside an old train station so the exterior has a lot of character and even walking inside, you feel like you're in a totally different time and place. However, once you actually enter the concourse, you definitely feel like you're inside of a real major league ballpark (yes, this is a stab at Globe Life). The park concourse gives me major T-Mobile vibes, which I like. It was very spacious even though there were a lot of fans walking around and there were a lot of different places to get food from which is all a plus in my book. Like T-Mobile, there is a retractable roof, but because of nearby thunderstorms, the roof was closed so we just sat in the air-conditioned stadium. We sat 23 rows up from the visitor's dugout so we had a solid view of the field, yet we were still close enough to smell the 'roids. What about the rest of the space in the stadium? Advertisements, advertisements, advertisements. It seemed like the entire game and fan experience were mentions of everyone that was advertising. One thing I really liked is how they had two digital screens for fans to see all of the game stuff on, one ginormous one in centerfield and one very very large on on the 3rd level behind home plate. Why do I care about this? Imagine sitting in the seats under the scoreboard or directly to the side, you don't get to see anything that's happening. With the second screen, everyone gets a chance to figure out which can of Goya beans the baseball is under.
No longer unique to the Rangers, in my experiences so far, was the fact that the Astros also had cheerleaders. Where the cheerleaders lacked in individual t-shirt cannons they made up for in the 8 barrel shirt cannon, all of eight of which are fired simultaneously by Orbit, the Astros mascot, from the back of a truck driving around the warning track. They had pretty good fan engagement as there was stuff going on on the screen all of the time and had special graphics depending on the situation.
Now, for the real reason you're reading, the hotdog. It was a good hotdog and I'm not just saying that because the hotdog at Globe Life was awful. This hotdog had a good, meaty flavor, was proportional to the bun size and the bun was delicious (did I detect a potato bun?). It was nowhere near the perfection that is the Petco Park hotdog, but this is definitely an above average hotdog. The main hotdog vendor used a quick order process. You go up to a screen and order everything and they just call out your number when your order is ready, just like the Costco food court. It felt very efficient, yet I did prefer Dodger Stadium where you grabbed everything and went to check out with the cashier. All of the other vendors were traditional lines.
The Astros played the Mariners on May 4, 2024 at 6:15 pm and we sat in section 113, row 23. The price I paid for the tickets to this game was $$$. For the value, I felt this was definitely overpriced, but I was willing to pay it because they played my home team. I guess there's enough suckers out there to make flex pricing work.
If you want to see the box score, here’s a link
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