Astros fans will have to adjust their eyes to a new sight when they make their first trip to Minute Maid Park next season. For the first time since the ballpark opened 16 years ago, center field will be completely flat.
Center fielders will likely welcome the removal of Houston's infamous Tal's Hill, seeing as they never knew which deep fly ball would be the one that sent them up the steep incline -- or worse, into the giant flag pole. But, in some ways, Tal's Hill was the final link to a bygone era in Major League parks -- when each outfield seemed idiosyncratic and complete with its own set of quirks and challenges for the players tasked with traversing it.