BETTER BUZZ
Even as an Astros affiliate, quirky Skeeters vow not to lose family-friendly identity
Franchise now Astros affiliate but wants to keep community feel.
SUGAR LAND — The Sugar Land Skeeters and their home ballpark, Constellation Field, began as a gleam in the eye of a suburban mayor looking for a way out of the doldrums of the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Along the way, the Skeeters became the anchor tenant in a real estate redevelopment play, the southern outpost of an upstart baseball league, and now, with their purchase by the Houston Astros, the vanguard of a new wave of consolidation and realignment within professional baseball.
But the core attraction of the Skeeters to Sugar Land, and their successful operation that made them an attractive option for the Astros, is as much about lifestyle as it is about sports marketing, as much about families as it is about business.
“I like to say that minor league baseball is like a circus, and a baseball game breaks out,” said Christopher Hill, the Skeeters’ president and, in 2011, the first employee hired by the ballclub.
“And that’s important. Because while I want everyone to love baseball, my priority is for everyone to love Constellation Field. That would mean we have built a ballpark that has something for everyone, and that’s our priority.”
While 2021 will begin a new era for the Skeeters as the Astros’ Class AAA farm team, the idea of affiliated baseball in Sugar Land is not a new one.
Jimmy Thompson, Sugar Land’s mayor from 2008 to 2016, said he discussed the idea with former Astros owner Drayton McLane before McLane put the Astros up for sale in 2010 — but it took a while to accomplish.
In the interim, the Skeeters first took the field at their new $37 million, 7,500-seat ballpark in 2012 as members of the independent Atlantic League, the league’s only team not based in the eastern corridor from Connecticut to Maryland.
In its first year, the team traveled more than 24,000 miles by airplane, plus bus rides between road stops.
Their place in baseball’s firmament was as something of an oddity, more known for guest appearances by Roger Clemens in 2012, Tracy McGrady in 2014 and Rafael Palmeiro in 2015 than for their Atlantic League championships in 2016 and 2018.
Sugar Land also was a launching pad for more than 60 players who signed with affiliated minor league teams or with the Mexican League. It even sent six players to the majors, most notably lefthanded pitcher Scott Kazmir, who revived his stalled career in 2012 and returned to the majors for four seasons under contracts totaling $70 million.
Affiliation with a Major League Baseball team, though, was always the goal for Thompson and for Grover “Deacon” Jones, a former major league infielder and Astros coach who has been the abiding face of the ballclub as its special assistant to the president and constant booster.
“This is something I have prayed for since inception, and I had almost given up on it,” said Jones, 86. “But the city of Sugar Land made it happen. They were always so forward with their thinking.”
With no experience in stadium development, Thompson said the city worked with Opening Day Partners, an East Coast company that owned multiple affiliated and independent minor league teams, to design Constellation Field.
The ballpark initially was planned for an area along U.S. 59 now occupied by the University of Houston’s Sugar Land campus. As UH worked on campus planning, Thompson said he turned his attention to the new Imperial development along Texas 6 across from the Sugar Land Airport.
“They needed something to get that development jump-started, so that’s where it is today,” he said. “The water table is high in that area, so we built it so that you walk uphill to get to the ballpark, and once you’re there, all the seats are at field level.”
While the ballpark is the main attraction, Jones said the Skeeters focused on ringing the outfield with entertainment centers where children could play while their parents watched the game.
From left field to right, families can choose from among a picnic area, a pool, playground, a “splash pad” water park and a grassy hill behind the bullpens, while adults can congregate in the center field Bud Light Ice House.
“It’s a community kind of atmosphere,” Jones said. “I remember sitting in big league stadiums and having kids kick the back of my eat and run around. Kids are kids.
“But in my ballpark, we’ve got a basketball hoop, a swimming pool, slides, sprinklers, all sort of things.”
Since the ballpark was built with tax revenues, Thompson said the city asked the team to provide enough event days beyond Skeeters home games to support the city’s investment.
Thompson said the ballpark is used more than 250 days a year, including for the current Holiday Lights extravaganza that will continue nightly into the New Year.
Jay Ferry, a Fort Bend County energy executive who has Skeeters season tickets. said he has been to more than 90 major and minor league ballparks and likes coming to Constellation Field for baseball, Christmas lights, boxing, concerts, BMX bike racing and junior college and high school baseball because it’s affordable and convenient.
“Until we can build a tunnel that can get us to the other side of Houston as Highway 59 gets locked up, this is a good place to be,” he said. “I live 10 minutes away, and during the time it would take me to drive to Minute Maid Park, I’ve had some nachos and at least one beer and traded war stories with people before I’d be going through the doors downtown.”
Hill said the Skeeters draw about 70 percent of their attendance from within a 10-mile radius of the ballpark, and Thompson said the team also has marketed itself to fans in Katy and other smaller towns along U.S. 59 southwest of Sugar Land.
The Atlantic League always promoted itself as being the equivalent of the affiliated Triple-A leagues — the Pacific Coast League and International League — but Jones said fans will see a decided uptick in talent with the Astros affiliation.
“The quality has been OK,” he said. “I would get upset sometimes because a batter wouldn’t try to move a runner over. They were trying to get to the big leagues, so they would swing for the fences, which is not the way I was taught.
“But players benefited from being here. I remember Kazmir almost begging us to play here. He would have played for anything, And then, two years or three years later, he gets a big contract.”
It remains to be seen how the Astros purchase of a majority interest in the Skeeters from the family of local energy executive Bob Zlotnik, wife Marcie and their son Kevin, an executive with the family’s investment company, will change operations at the ballpark.
“(Astros owner) Jim Crane will control everything,” Jones said. “So it’s going to be different.”
Ferry, though, said any changes will be offset by the fact that Sugar Land fans can watch players who are a phone call from the major leagues or on injury rehab assignments from the big league roster.
“You’ll have guys like Jose Altuve or Carlos Correa coming through, which will be awesome,” Jones said. “My phone has been ringing off the hook with sponsorships. I even heard from some company in Switzerland.”
The Skeeters purchase made logistical sense for the Astros, given the growing trend of having Triple-A franchises within close range of the big league ballpark.
Feely, though, expects the community feel of Skeeters baseball to remain.
“It’s not like we’ll be expecting to see Jack Nicholson behind home plate,” he said. “It will be home folk like it is now.”