Friday, April 20, 2012

Remembering man who built the Dome

Space travelers, addressing listeners on the ground, say your name first. Three years before becoming a freshman at Baylor in 1983, I lived at my dad's Austin address and, from there, visited Houston on countless weekends. There is a picture of him feeding me a bite of birthday cake. The photo reminds me that, although I was not born with a silver spoon literally in my mouth, I was born with a silver fork in my grandfather's hand. Logic being, they have marks to make themselves and may not be too warm and fuzzy about coat-tail explanations for whatever they become. Houstonians knew him as a boy mayor, as a judge, as a champion for civil rights, a legislator who had passed the bar at 19, a father of three, a husband, as a self-made man determined to make Houston a giant version of Bedford Falls. Today, he'd see satire and delight in my place of employ the last 11-plus years, MLB Advanced Media, in the industry from which he was cornered by creditors. The Astrodome was built because of Houston's innovative, pioneering spirit. The architectural jaw-dropper, the Dome, stood for a first-rate frontier, and it was conceived, born and raised in a place that people from the other coasts imagined had mostly dirt roads, tumbleweeds and assorted critters. A special occasion, a reward. If you lacked a certain level of effort or concern for customer satisfaction, well, then you heard about it. Here's to collective accomplishments ahead for people who cherish Houston, people who defend it like a beloved relative at the end of every day, unconditionally, honoring it in their actions, seeing it as their workplace, their playground, their resting space. [...] Houston had earned its world class status, was firmly on the map as Major League, and any stadium with a roof, fixed or retractable, was the offspring of Harris County's own national treasure. Solar, wind and rain equal the makings of a transformed, highly efficient facility. Google began in a garage, Facebook in a dorm, so let's find out what hatches in a hurricane-proof historic landmark. Mann is executive vice president of content at Major League Baseball Advanced Media, responsible for programming, design and all material published/syndicated by the New York-based company. Before joining MLB.com as its founding editor-in-chief in 2001, Mann spent 12 years in leadership roles at news organizations in Kansas City, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Austin and Columbia, Mo.

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