With yesterday being Opening Day of the Major League baseball season (my Cardinals lost 5–3 after being one out away from a win in the 9th inning), here’s a look at some technical improvements being made at ballparks around the country.
Houston Astros – Minute Maid Park
The Astros join the Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins as the only MLB teams to feature a scoreboard with a 1080i display format. “Fans are watching games on high-definition [television], so when they come out to the ballpark we want things to be in high-definition, as well,” Kirby Kander, the Astros’ senior director of creative services, told Wired.com. Where once stood a 26-by-45-foot scoreboard in right field, there’s now a 54-by-124-foot Daktronics behemoth that ranks as the fourth-largest scoreboard in the majors.
The 2.66-million pixel scoreboard was part of a $13 million project which included a 24-by-40-foot video board stationed in left field and 1,185 linear feet of ribbon boards spanning from one foul pole to the other. A state-of-the-art, two-level control room comprising 1,500 square feet was built at the suite level in left field to manage the new ‘boards.