Outside Minute Maid Park
I’ve been attending major league baseball games all my life. My mom used to schlep the four of us kids on the train to see the Chicago Cubs lose play during the day, while my father would subject us to White Sox games at night (I loved the fireworks afterwards at old Comiskey Park, but as a Northsider, I bled true blue Cubbie).
Minute Maid Park from above our section of seats
I’ve also logged my share of time watching my adopted team, the Houston Astros, lose play. Unfortunately, the l’Astros are having a terrible season so far and are the worst team in the major leagues . . . even worse than my beloved Cubbies.
J.A. Happ delivers the pitch for the Astros.
Fortunately, we share great seats (with our good friends Terry and Sárka) at Minute Maid Park that are a mere six rows from the Astros dugout, which makes sitting through games much less painful. We’re so close to the action!
Note the big windows letting in a lot of light when the roof is closed
The Mister and I watched the Astros battle the Boston Red Sox last Saturday while our sons were busy celebrating our “third son” Chase’s 20th birthday. Of course, I had one question to ponder as I got ready to leave our house: What photo equipment to take?
Love the new scoreboard!
After all, our seats are so good that I could potentially snap great action shots . . . as long as there were no heads in the way (which, of course, there always are). But when I use the big Nikon digital SLR, I tend to not take in everything the experience has to offer. Plus my right elbow has been paining me from lugging the heavy camera and lenses. It would be nice to downsize for a change.
First baseman David Ortiz (Big Papi) stays close to baserunner Chris Johnson.
Which is what I did! I decided to go with my Canon S90 point and shoot. Although it has a wimpy, 3.8x zoom, it features better quality indoors than most non-SLRs. I thought it did an admirable job.
Our seats are so close, I had a great view of Hunter Pence’s butt.
That’s not to say that I didn’t miss my dSLR, of course. The sloooow lag time when the shutter finally snaps on a P&S can be so frustrating!
Pence, my favorite Astro, is ready to hit the ball hard.
Getting the bat on the ball with a P&S? Virtually impossible. But I reminded myself that I wasn’t trying to take memorable action photos; I just wanted memories of our experience.
I think I accomplished that while the l’Astros, of course, lost yet another game. I’m glad we left before the eighth inning to beat the traffic!
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