Col and I have never been huge baseball fans, we love ‘live’ sport and we’ll go to watch pretty much anything, but with the Astros being in downtown Houston, where the parking fees alone make you balk, we tend to stick to going to the Astros, only as and when people are in town visiting, or when there’s nothing much else on a weekend.

The handful of Astros games I *have* been to, I’ve enjoyed, I’ve never been thoroughly sucked in to the game, though.  The food is poor, the prices are high and while it’s a good night’s entertainment, it’s not great, y’know?

I mean, there are a number of better things to spend your hard earned bucks on in Houston, better sports and now even better baseball!

This year is the inaugural season of the Sugar Land Skeeters, a local baseball team that is literally ten minutes down the road from us.

The stadium itself really is excellent, it’s very spacious, the seats are well spaced and the facilities for children are excellent.

There’s a picnic area, for $37.50 you get a ticket to the picnic area, this covers the cost of your seat, you get two hours of all you can eat and drink (and the food is the best stadium food I’ve ever had).

It also gives you access to the 3ft deep swimming pool (for kids and adults) and the kids play area (a carousel, soft play area, splash pad etc).

Seats on the grassy lawn or general admission tickets are only $9 a piece and the field box seats, $13 (compared to the Astros field box tickets of $41/$29).  $13 at the Astros, will bag you a 4th level nosebleed seat, at the Skeeters, you get to sit right behind home plate, dodging baseballs – though your view from anywhere in the field is pretty much excellent!

Not only that, but parking is free at the Skeeters, there is a ‘special’ and exclusive car park for the season ticket holders, but general admission parking is free, which is fantastic given how expensive parking is for Houston-based sports events.

If you’re a fan of freebies, many Skeeters games host a ‘first 200 fans to arrive at the game get a treat’ kind of giveaway.

The 1st base line is in the shade early, which is a great benefit when the sun stays out until almost 9pm on those Texas summer nights and the concessions are all close to every seat with a great selection, the bathrooms are clean, the people are friendly. They actually come around to pick up your trash during the game so you don’t litter & they don’t have to clean it all after.

I love their Texas shaped scoreboard (and have requested, on numerous occasions that Col buy one for our living room), I love the friendly staff and I already have more Skeeters merchandise in the three games we’ve been to, than I’ve bought in three years of being at Astros games!

I also love how well thought out the Skeeters are, as a team and a franchise, for example, they are called the Skeeters, because mosquitoes are common in Texas during the summer nights, also, the official colors of the team are nighttime black, imperial blue, rawhide yellow, white, and refinery red.

“Aside from nighttime black, each color is a regional allusion: “imperial blue” for the Sugar Land–based Imperial Sugar company, “rawhide yellow” for the cattle industry, and “refinery red” for the area’s oil refineries.  The team’s primary logo consists of a mosquito flying over a Texas contour with its proboscis marking Fort Bend County.  The “Skeeters” wordmark centered below is made up of sugarcane-inspired lettering—a reference to the region’s importance to the industry.  Centered to the right above the contour is “Sugar Land” in black letters with a ‘lone star’.”

It’s all very personal and very Texan, and, if you want a great night out, go and see a game, we’ve already got plans for our next one!