This is a move as welcome as it was unexpected (by me). I never thought that Enron would accept so little money – just a little less than half of what they’d coughed up for the 2002 season – to walk away from the naming rights contract. This still has to be approved by the bankruptcy judge, so there may yet be another twist, but I hope that his honor slaps his rubber stamp down on this deal and gets it over with.

Next up, what to do with all the signage? Dismantling all the Enron references around the park will be a time consuming matter. And the replacement name won’t even be known for a couple of months according to the Astros. I can’t imagine that Drayton will spring to have the word “Enron” replaced with the word “Astros” everywhere, but he may do it in a select few, high-visibility locations. It’s either that, leave it as it is for now, or have “[Blank] Field” all over the place. On the positive side of things, my ticket stub from the opening series against the Yankmees just got a little bit more valuable.

Hopefully, this will put an end to the hackneyed plays on the old name such as “HomeRun Field” and “TenRun Field”. (more…)

Really? You could’ve fooled me! Pitchers and catchers report, and we get nothing. Position players report . . . nothing! Everyone’s pussy-footing around the new manager, saying all the right things and showing up for camp early (brown-nosers!). This all leads to Spring Training reports with all the incite and pep of Alan Ashby’s play-by-play. Yawn.

I know ST games mean nothing, but I’m wasting away waiting for someone to actually throw a pitch in anger!

The Power Station

Naming rights issues mean that, rightly or wrongly, the name “Enron” is stuck on the Astros’ crib for a while. The nickname EFUS is a derivative of that name, and needs to be retired. I always thought it was a little contrived in any case ? and I have bad memories of it as I was laughed off the air by Charlie and Rich when I suggested it to them in my one and only appearance on Houston talk radio. (more…)