“I simply can’t afford another ill-fated dining experience at the ballpark, my darling,” they’d say as they wafted their way, feet gliding over the politely chosen, baseball-engraved tiles, narrow eyes darting nervously about as they sized up today’s pan-seared catfish with mango salsa and then the Southwestern chicken Caesar salad with Chipotle dressing.
“There just isn’t anything to eat around here anymore, my dear.”
“Oh, but have you seen the dessert display, honey?”
Such was the summer of 2000 that I spent working in the newest of baseball’s downtown playpens- Houston’s Enron Field. I worked at a quaint little restaurant on the Club Level called Sam’s Bistro. This is the kind of Bistro where an eighteen-year-old kid with no experience in the fine art of cooking can fry you up a $12.95 meal in no time flat. It is also the kind of Bistro that exists in a baseball stadium.
That should tell you something about the quality of Sam’s Bistro at Enron Field.
At the time, Enron was the latest of the retro, throwback ballparks, complete with easily accessible dining areas and ample retail opportunities nearby; an urban village built along the same lines as every suburban strip center that I’d ever been to.
Sometimes even a pseudo-celebrity, perhaps a forgotten legend along the lines of Moses Malone or Elvin Hayes, would show up-half hiding themselves, half on display, but just unusually tall enough to prohibit their anonymity. And they’d answer the same question from countless uneasy passersby-“Hey, didn’t you used to play for. . .”
And I’d smile quietly as I realized this city’s feeble attempt at celebrity. Not at all like the too-cool-to-care crowds at the Forum, who would seemingly be at ease even in the glow of Oscar himself. This was a celebrity built more from struggling car dealership commercials and grainy replays that only get shown on ESPN Classic. This was the kind of celebrity that could return to its seat out among the hoi polloi and not experience any discomfort, save a desperate lack of leg room.
I can remember wanting to work at Enron Field from the very first day I saw the artists’ renderings splashed across the evening news. I had even gone with my dad to see an exact-scale model (complete with moving parts) of the stadium when it was on display in an office building downtown-a year prior to groundbreaking.
I loved everything about our new stadium. I was more than ready for the Astros to get out of the old curmudgeon of a concrete dungeon that was the Astrodome. The one-time “Eighth Wonder of the World” would now be resigned to the more humble offerings of high school football and Wynona concerts. Yes, indeed, I thought I loved everything about this new stadium, that is, of course, until I came to find out what it really stood for.
As every good politician learns: in the end, it comes down to money. And thanks to countless unknowing tourists being ripped off with ungodly hotel and rental car taxes, we had the money to build the stadium.
As time went by, we got even more money from benevolent corporate sponsors such as Enron. By opening day, the stadium’s erstwhile moniker, Enron Field, was faithfully plastered across every last wall, tabletop and closer-to-the-action-than-ever-before-with-unimpeded-sight-lines folding seat in the house. The familiar, yet fledgling, baseball adaptation of Enron’s logo was already as prominent in the stadium’s atmosphere as the over-priced beer sold in plastic bottles.
To me, what Enron Field really stood for was an attempt at giving people enough extras to validate across-the-board ticket hikes. Creating memories, nostalgia, out of thin air. Treating baseball like a process, a place to be seen, a bottom line.
So was my infatuation based in deception? No! This was what we agreed to. This was what the city voted on (more than once), and what we helped pay to see out to fruition.
They deceived me when they put Sam’s Bistro on the Club Level and served seafood during the Star Spangled Banner. They deceived me when they changed our mascot from a fuzzy, friendly alien into a hyperactive jackrabbit overnight, and they broke my heart when they gave my ballpark its third name in less than three years.
And now where do we stand? Somewhere in the cheap, left field seats at Minute Maid Park-all traces of the sinful Enron logo cleverly disguised or removed altogether. Perhaps it’s fitting that the stadium was originally named after a company whose expertise was in the art of deception. I once heard Minute Maid Park described as, “A place where the players are juiced and the fans get squeezed.”
This is probably true in more ways than I’d care to let myself realize. It all comes down to money and greed and who gets what privilege over whom.
You know, it’s funny, when I was working at Sam’s Bistro, all the television monitors that broadcast the live in-game action faced away from where the employees were working. In an ironic twist, I was closer to the action than ever before, yet I missed pretty much everything that mattered.
Sound familiar?