This off-season the Astros are implementing their first renovation to Minute Maid Park since taking down that Enron sign.
Trying to keep up with the massive screen that shows us the taut skin of Jerry Jones to the north, they'll put in a 7,000 square foot HD video board in the outfield.
Drayton:
"We wanted to give fans the utmost experience...Fans have flat screen TVs and high-definition TVs at their homes, and now they'll have that at the ballpark. We need to constantly upgrade the ballpark especially in this era."
Pam Gardner:
"We've been researching this for the past 3-4 years. We knew we needed bigger, number one, because that's the trend, and we knew we needed HD."
A couple of things about this:
1. It took the Astros 3-4 years to decide on a tv. That says more than we can ever comment on. You give me $1000 and send me to Best Buy to get an HD tv, and I'll be watching Gladiator within the hour.
2. Sure, I buy the "It's been 10 years since we did anything to Minute Maid, so it was time to upgrade" rationale. We also can't discount that Drayton is basically staging his house, getting it all pretty to sell, with a cool new park and low payroll.
Thoughts?
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
