HOME RUN GRUB
Home run lineup of stadium eats for Astros 2020 season revealed
Feb 5, 2020, 2:26 pm
El Mariachi Tots, Jalapeño Tots, El Presidente Tots, and Buffalo Chicken Tots. Photo courtesy of Aramark
This article originally appeared on CultureMap.
The Houston Astros held their annual welcome back luncheon for the media Tuesday and rolled out a new slogan for 2020, a long menu of new concession food items and a bigger-than-ever schedule of bobblehead and American League pennant ring giveaways. (I even got to meet Geoff Blum, finally.)
Let's deal with the slogan and giveaways before we get to what's really important: this season's food lineup at Minute Maid Park.
The new slogan is "For the H," a rallying cheer for Houston. We've been through some pretty tough challenges lately — a few natural and one man-made disaster. It's time to play some baseball.
There will be 38 giveaway nights. This time, every fan will get the bobblehead or T-shirt or ring, none of that "first 10,000 fans" limit. Fans won't have to line up outside the stadium at noon for a bobblehead at 7 pm.
I have a suggestion for the Astros: It's always disappointing when the team sells 40,000 tickets to Justin Verlander Bobblehead night, people pick up the bobblehead upon entry and turn right around and leave. There's lots of empty seats and it looks crummy. Solution: when fans enter, they get a coupon for the bobblehead, which they can pick up on their way out, after at least the fifth inning.
Bobbleheads or T-shirts will be given away on 31 nights. Opening night is Thursday, March 26 (wow that's early) at home against the Angels, with Mike Trout and Lamar High School alum Anthony Rendon. ESPN will carry the game and the Astros will unfurl their 2019 American League pennant.
Weekend games will feature a pennant ring giveaway and Jose Altuve bobblehead honoring his American League Championship Series MVP.
The Astros will post their promotions schedule each month online. Early season bobbleheads will celebrate Verlander's Cy Young Award and Yordan Alvarez's Rookie of the Year Award. June 24 will be Astros Pride Night in support of LBGT fans ("baseball is for everybody") and August 7 will commemorate the 20th anniversary of Minute Maid Park. (Stadiums, they grow up so fast.) The Astros will be wearing uniforms made by Nike this year, so the gift shop will be packed with new styles of jerseys and hats.
Enough of that, let's get to the food, glorious food. Here's Mat Drain, the Yokozuna of Yams for Aramark, which handles all the concessions at Minute Maid Park: "Hot dogs, Cracker Jack, and peanuts will always be baseball staples, but our fans expect variety in the stadium, too. We have taken the approach of taking some old favorites and dressing them up to add an array of different looks and flavors," says Drain.
"This season we've partnered with wildly popular Killen's BBQ. Each year, fans ask me what is new. I think our staff has come up with lots of things that will keep them happy and well-fed all season, though October hopefully."
Here are some of the new items for Astros 2020. Don't worry, the time-honored classics, like regular dogs, burgers, popcorn, ice cream, and beer will never leave.
Continue on CultureMap for a list of the new items for 2020 and more photos.
Astros close series with a performance worth the wait
Jun 5, 2025, 11:59 pm
All-Star balloting opened up this week for what used to be known as the Midsummer Classic in Major League Baseball. I guess some still refer to it as such but the All-Star Game has been largely a bore for many years, though the honor of being selected on merit remains a big one. As always, fans can vote at all positions except pitcher. The fan balloting has resulted in mostly good selections for years now, though pretty much all teams still do silly marketing stuff trying to drum up support for their players. The Astros’ part in that silliness is their campaign to make it the “All-’Stros” game on the American League squad in Atlanta next month. It’s one thing to be supportive of your team, it’s another to be flat out ridiculous if voting right now for Yainer Diaz, Christian Walker, Yordan Alvarez, Mauricio Dubon, or Cam Smith. The Astros tried to game the system in submitting Jose Altuve as a second baseman where the competition is weaker than it is in the outfield, but given Altuve has played only about 25 percent of the games at second base this season he should not be an All-Star second baseman selectee for what would be the tenth time in his career.
Isaac Paredes’s recent freefall notwithstanding, he has a legitimate case as a backup third baseman, especially with Alex Bregman likely missing more than a month of games due to his quad injury. Jake Meyers is having a fine season but is obviously not an All-Star-worthy outfielder unless he is sensational for the rest of June. That leaves Jeremy Peña, who is simply the best shortstop in the big leagues so far this season. To be clear, no team in baseball (including the Astros) would rather have Peña going forward than the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., but we’re talking about the here and now. There are another 100 games to be played, but Peña not only is about a lock to deserve his first All-Star nod, but he is in contention to put in the books the greatest season ever by an Astro shortstop.
Over his first three seasons, Peña was a consistently mediocre offensive player. His highest batting average was .266, best on-base percentage .324, top slugging percentage .426. He is blowing away all those numbers thus far in 2025. While unlikely to come close to reaching his preseason goal of 50 stolen bases, Peña is swiping bags at the best success rate of his career. Add in Peña’s stellar defense and that he has played in every Astros’ game so far this season, and Peña has been irrefutably one of the 10 best and most valuable players in the American League. You could certainly argue as high as top three.
If Peña's productivity holds up for the rest of the season there are only three other seasons posted by Astro shortstops that are in the same league as what would be Peña’s 2025. Carlos Correa has two of them. Lack of durability may be the biggest reason Correa is not tracking to be a Hall of Famer. In only two seasons as an Astro did Correa play in more than 136 games. He was fabulous in each of them. 2021 was his peak campaign, playing in 148 games while compiling an .850 OPS, winning a Gold Glove, and finishing fifth in AL MVP voting. Correa’s Baseball-Reference wins above replacement number for 2021 was 7.3. Peña is at 3.6 with nearly 20 games still left before the midway point of the schedule.
For the other great Astro shortstop season you have to go back to 1983. Dickie Thon turned 25 years old in June of ‘83. He put up a .798 OPS, which gains in stature given Thon played his home games in the Astrodome when the Dome was at its most pitching-friendly. Thon won the Silver Slugger Award as the best offensive shortstop in the National League, and played superior defense. His Baseball-Reference WAR number was 7.4. He finished seventh for NL MVP playing for an 85-77 Astros’ squad that finished third in the NL West. Dickie Thon looked like an emerging superstar. Then, in the fifth game of the 1984 season, a fastball from Mets’ pitcher Mike Torrez hit Thon in the left eye, fracturing his orbital bone. Thon missed the rest of the ‘84 season. While Thon played in nine more big league seasons, his vision never fully recovered and he was never the same player. It’s one of the biggest “What if...” questions in Astros’ history.
Arms race
Players and the Commissioner’s Office pick the All-Star pitching staffs. Unless he suddenly starts getting lit up regularly, Hunter Brown can pack a bag for Georgia. Framber Valdez wouldn’t make it now but has surged into contention. Josh Hader’s first half is going vastly better than last year’s, so he is in line for a reliever spot.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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