ASTROS BALLPARK TOURS

Take me out to the ballgame

On opening day of Baseball Season, Houston families decked out in their favorite player’s jerseys enter Minute Maid Park. They’re looking forward to 81 games of rooting and cheering for the home team. But both on and off-season, you can visit Minute Maid Park, or the “Juice Box,” for a tour of the home field of the Houston Astros.

The Classic Tour takes visitors on a one-hour trip through the team’s history, with plenty of Astros memorabilia and Astrodome artifacts. The Hall of Fame Alley shows off the team’s MVPs of the past, including Craig Biggio, who ended his 2007 season with the longest term of service with the same club and the goopiest pine tar-smeared batting helmet in baseball. Check out the red shale warning track circling the field that alerts outfielders of an approaching wall as they’re making a catch.

Do a speed round in the ballpark with the “Minute in Minute Maid” tour during non-game days. The power walk starts in the Union Station lobby which greeted train passengers from 1910 to 1974, including Babe Ruth when the New York Yankees played the Buffs, Houston’s minor league team in the 1930s. In the off-season, tours take you behind-the-scenes, where you can see the press box, the visitor’s clubhouse and batting cage, the Astros dugout, and inside the giant manual scoreboard. When you’re old enough to stay up late, come back for a ghost tour, and you might get a glimpse of the mischievous female spirit who gets a thrill from flushing all the toilets!

TIP: Root for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, on their home turf at Constellation Field.

Address 501 Crawford Street, Houston, TX 77002, +1 (713) 259-8000, www.mlb.com/astros /ballpark/tours, tourstaff@astros.com // Getting there METRO Rail to Convention District Station (Green, Purple Lines); bus 6, 20, 30 to Congress & Crawford Streets // Hours See website for tour schedule // Ages 4+