Been an Astros fan since 1980.
This is a class organization, with high integrity players.
Extremely proud of them, and hope they can slow down the Dodgers.
Go Frogs!
I was a fan of the Houston Astros before they were the Astros. It was 1964, I was 8 years old, and the team was then the Houston Colt .45's, whose inaugural season as an expansion team was 1962. My father took my twin brother and me to a game at old Colt Stadium, a tinker-toy structure with wooden bleachers situated where Reliant Stadium is today. The stadium was hot, humid, and infested with thick swarms of mosquitoes. Dad bought my brother and me a matching dark-blue caps with ".45's" embroidered on the front in orange thread.
The next year, 1965, two years after the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center) was built in Houston, they opened the Astrodome (under construction since 1962) and renamed the Colt .45's team the Astros. Dad took us to a game during that inaugural season of the Astrodome, which was a huge novelty at the time. The game featured Colonel Keds, the space-age hero-mascot of Keds sneakers, flying in his jet backpack all around the interior of the Dome. Doesn't seem so incredible today, but at the time it was amazing -- especially considering that the apex of the Dome was 18 stories high.
Of course, back then, the Texas Rangers weren't the Texas Rangers. They were the Washington Senators, a perennially underperforming American League franchise from the expansion of 1961. They moved to Arlington and began play as the Texas Rangers in a Minor League stadium in 1972.
Continued to attend Astros games and other events at the Astrodome throughout my youth. In 1969, I attended Houston's "Welcome Home" celebration for the Apollo 11 moon astronauts, hosted by Frank Sinatra. In 1970, I saw Elvis perform live there at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. In 1980, I saw Nolan Ryan hit the second and final home run of his career there as a first-year Astros pitcher when Houston was still in the National League. It was a 3-run dinger.
What made that particular HR so amazing was two things:
- Ryan had been previously pitching for the American League California Angels and hadn't faced a Major League at-bat for 8 years. This was his first at-bat since returning to the National League.
- At that time, the Astrodome was the largest and longest ballpark in the Majors and had the fewest HRs allowed of any ML park. It was known as the quintessential "pitcher's park."
Memories...