Houston's baseball beginnings
The birth of professional baseball in Houston started with a bang
Sep 20, 2017, 7:00 am
The 2012 Astros sport throwback Colt 45's uniforms. Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images
Fifty-five years ago, the Houston Astros entered Major League Baseball — just not as the Astros. Back then, they were the Colt 45s. Named after the gun. Before establishing a pro team, Houston had a minor league team from 1888 until 1961 that went by the name of the Houston Buffaloes. In 1962, Major League Baseball allowed the Houston team to enter the National League along with the New York Mets as expansion franchises.
The first job was coming up with a name. The owners of the new franchise crowdsourced the idea to people around Houston. They held a “Name the Team” contest that was eventually won by William Irving Neder. The Houstonian argued that the Colt .45 was emblematic of the Texas frontier’s reputation and fit well with Houston’s image. The owners agreed, and the Colt .45s were born.
On opening day of 1962, the Colt .45s won their first game 11-2 against the Cubs behind a six RBI day from Roman Melias, playing in front of 25,271 people at Colt Stadium. From there, the team went through mostly early expansion woes. The Colt .45s went 196-288 over their first three seasons. Then, three years later, the Colt .45s were gone. It wasn’t because the name was mediocre. There was just a clearly better option.
America’s Manned Spacecraft Center, which was a training facility for astronauts, was 25 miles from Houston. In a little over two years, Houston becoming the epicenter of American space exploration completely altered the country-wide perception of the city. It became known as the home of astronauts, so the new team name ideally would reflect that.
One of the primary reasons Houston was granted a franchise in the first place was the promise of a new stadium. The idea was that Houston would have a beautiful place with modern amenities that would be high-tech to mirror the burgeoning space program in the city. The stadium would be climate controlled so that summertime Houston heat would not discourage fans from coming to day games.
In January 1962, a ceremony was held at the site of the dome where Colt .45s (the guns, not the team) were shot into the flat, bare land. Three years later, the city delivered when it unveiled a brand-new domed stadium. The name of the structure: the Astrodome. With a home called the Astrodome, it was only a matter of time until the name changed. The new name announcement came on December 1, 1964.
The president of the club, Judge Ray Hofheinz, told the UPI that the change was to keep up with the times and that “the name was taken from the stars and indicated we are on the ascendancy.” He also said that Houston “is the space age capital of the world and with our new domed stadium, we think it will also make Houston the sports capital of the world.”
Over a half-century later, the Astros are still the Astros, even if the Astrodome isn’t where they play. But, no matter how many times they change venues or names, the Astros will always be the original Colt .45s.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or nine games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after a 4-8 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez (though not Breggy Bad). A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.