Minute Maid Park

Minute Maid Park is a baseball stadium in Houston, Texas, opened in 2000 to house the Houston Astros.

The stadium is perhaps better known by its now-infamous former name, Enron Field. Astros managers faced a public relations nightmare when the energy corporation went bankrupt in the midst of one of the biggest business scandals in American history in 2001, and they bought back the remainder of Enron's thirty years of naming rights, hastily rechristening the ballpark as "Astros Field". In 2002 Minute Maid, the fruit-juice subsidiary of Coca-Cola, acquired the naming rights to the stadium. Removing all of the signage that included the old Enron Field name proved a time-consuming and costly process.

The ballpark was Houston's first retractable-roofed stadium, thus enabling it to be hermetically sealed from hot or inclement weather like its predecessor, the Reliant Astrodome, or left open on more pleasant days. Its entrance is what was once Houston's Union Station, and one side of the stadium features a miniature train as homage to the site's history. The train runs the length of the exterior wall beyond left field whenever an Astros player hits a home run.

The stadium is known for being particularly hitter-friendly down the lines, particularly in left field, where it is only 315 ft. to the Crawford St. Boxes. Conversely, it is quite difficult to hit a ball out in center field, though fielding is quite difficult there as well, due to the large hill, sometimes known as Tal's Hill, an element taken from Crosley Field and other historic ballparks, and the flagpole in play, an element taken from Tiger Stadium. The tiny size of foul territory does not help pitchers either.