Minute Maid Park - Previous Names

Previous Names

The ballpark was first christened as Enron Field on April 7, 2000, with naming rights sold to the Houston energy and financial trading company in a 30 year, $100 million deal. Astros management faced a public relations nightmare when the energy corporation went bankrupt in the midst of one of the biggest corporate scandals in American history in 2001, and they bought back the remainder of Enron's thirty years of naming rights for $2.1 million, rechristening the ballpark as Astros Field on February 7, 2002. The field was unofficially known as "The Field Formerly Known As Enron" by fans and critics alike, in wake of the Enron scandal. On June 5, 2002, Houston-based Minute Maid, the fruit-juice subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, acquired the naming rights to the stadium for 28 years at an estimated price of $170 million.

Based on its downtown location next to the old Union Station buildings, one of the suggested names (and nicknames) is the Ballpark at Union Station, or the BUS. During its days as Enron Field, it was also dubbed "Ten-Run" or "Home Run" Field due to its cozy left-field dimensions. In keeping with this theme while paying homage to its current sponsor, the nickname "The Juice Box" is colloquially used today. The dubbing of the park as an extreme hitter-friendly park has been called into question in recent years. In fact, the 2009 season saw the park ranked 24th out of 30 Major League parks in terms of runs scored in the park, meaning only six other stadiums saw fewer runs scored during the season, and ten other ballparks saw more home runs hit. The extremely deep center-field and left-center-field dimensions help to balance out the park significantly, and Minute Maid's Batting park factor is consistently very near average.