Astros plan to remove Tal's Hill from Minute Maid Park for 2016
As part of an expected $15-million renovation to Minute Maid Park, the Houston Astros plan to remove the most unique (and contentious) element from their home ballpark for the 2016 campaign.
Astros owner Jim Crane said Thursday that Tal's Hill - the famous incline in center field - will be removed following the 2015 campaign to create more fan-friendly space in center field and reduce health risks for players.
“As you know, Tal’s Hill, some people love it, some people hate it,” Crane told MLB.com's Brian McTaggart. “We just thought it would be a better ballpark by moving that in. It will still be a very deep center field. There’s always been concern with the flag poles in play and danger in that and also the injuries going up the Hill, so we think this would be better for the players, utilize the space better and be a very pretty ballpark.”
The renovations would shorten the distance to the center-field fence to roughly 409 feet - the wall currently sits 436 feet from home plate - and allow the Astros to eventually create a Hall of Fame honoring franchise luminaries in the newly created space.
“We’ve been working for some time to look at how we can improve the ballpark and we’ve gone through a number of renovations, including the diamond club, the club level, the locker rooms, the offices,” Crane said. “This is one of our big projects we knew we wanted to do. We did a lot of studies on other ballparks on the entertainment areas in center field and ours is very outdated over the life of the stadium, which has been great."
The club's renovation plan received preliminary approval Thursday from the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, which serves as the facility's landlord on behalf of the county taxpayers that own Minute Maid Park.
“Any time our tenants want to spend a significant amount money to upgrade our facilities, I think it’s in the taxpayers’ best interest to do that,” said Kenny Friedman, chairman of the Sports Authority. “We’ve been working with them all along on what their ideas are. They have great ideas, and I think the public will be excited by what they’re planning on doing there.”