July 24, 1965: Big Astrodome crowd sees Joe Nuxhall one-hit the Astros

The 1965 baseball season was one of great excitement for fans in Houston. Their National League team had moved into the newly built Astrodome and renamed itself the Houston Astros. The novelty of indoor baseball brought fans from all over the area to see major-league play in the modern air-conditioned comfort of the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” The Astrodome scoreboard was an added attraction. It featured a unique 45-second show of sounds and colored lights to celebrate Astros’ home runs and victories.

The Astros’ slate of 81 home games included four scheduled doubleheaders. Three were set as separate-admission day-night events, all on Saturdays. As National League Secretary Fred Fleig explained, “The purpose of this arrangement is to draw people who live 150 to 300 miles from Houston. [Astros’ owner] Judge [Roy] Hofheinz and the other Houston officials feel that this will make an attractive package for out-of-town customers. They can drive in on Friday afternoon, see four games and still be home by 10 or 11 o’clock on Sunday night.”1

The Astros’ third scheduled day-night doubleheader that season was on July 24, during a weekend series with the Cincinnati Reds. Entering the doubleheader, the Reds (54-41) were in second place in the National League, 1½ games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. They had racked up 16 hits in the series opener, rolling to a 9-1 win.

The Astros (42-50) were in a virtual tie with the Chicago Cubs for eighth place, 12 games back of the Dodgers and 12 games ahead of the 10th-place (and last) New York Mets. Houston featured several young players who were headed for long, successful careers. Second baseman Joe Morgan, age 21, finished 1965 as NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, leading the league in walks and scoring 100 runs. Center fielder Jim Wynn was 23 and right fielder Rusty Staub was 21; starting pitcher Larry Dierker would not turn 19 until September.

In the doubleheader’s opener, Astros right-hander Don Nottebart limited the Reds to three hits in a 4-2 win. Nottebart, who had pitched the first no-hitter in Houston franchise history two seasons earlier, held the Reds hitless until Pete Rose led off the top of the seventh with a triple. Nottebart was also a big part of the Astros offense, scoring a run on Morgan’s triple, and walking with the bases loaded to drive in another.2

Houston’s lineup in the night game included two longtime major leaguers obtained from the Philadelphia Phillies in separate deals in 1965. The catcher was 34-year-old Gus Triandos, in his 13th and final big-league season.3 Playing first was Frank Thomas, 36, in his 15th season. On July 3 Thomas had been placed on irrevocable waivers by the Phillies after a pregame fight with teammate Dick Allen.4 The Astros obtained him on July 10 for the $20,000 waiver price.5  Making his first start after dislocating the ring finger on his pitching hand on July 17 was right-hander Turk Farrell, who entered the game with a 7-3 record.

The Reds’ starting pitcher was 36-year-old left-hander Joe Nuxhall. Nuxhall famously pitched in his first big-league game more than two decades earlier in 1944 as a 15-year-old high-school student. He matured in the minors for several years and was not back in the majors until 1952. A reliable pitcher for the Reds throughout the mid-’50s, Nuxhall had lost his effectiveness and popularity in Cincinnati by 1960 and was traded to the Kansas City Athletics.

After a disappointing 1961 season in Kansas City, Nuxhall was released three times – by the A’s, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Los Angeles Angels – within five months from December 1961 to May 1962. Nuxhall then signed with the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres, the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate. Back in the majors with Cincinnati by July 1962, he was a valuable member of the Reds’ pitching staff for several more seasons, contributing 15 wins and 217 1/3 innings in 1963. His ’65 season record prior to July 24 was 6-3. 

Farrell got the Reds out in order in the top of the first. Morgan – less than a year old when Nuxhall pitched in his first big-league game – grounded to first to open the bottom of the inning. One out later, Nuxhall hit Wynn for the Astros’ first baserunner of the game, but Wynn was stranded when Thomas struck out. 

In the second the Reds threatened to score. Frank Robinson led off with an infield single off pitcher Farrell’s hand. Gordy Coleman then bounced a single down the first-base line. Thomas’s wild throw allowed Robinson to get to third. One out later Johnny Edwards’s two-out walk loaded the bases, but Farrell prevented the Reds from scoring by striking out Leo Cardenas and getting Nuxhall to pop out. 

All batters on both sides were then retired in order until the fourth, which Robinson led off with his second single of the game. Triandos threw him out trying to steal. The pitchers continued to dominate, allowing no baserunners until Nuxhall walked Morgan in the sixth. Nuxhall had struck out five straight batters during that stretch.

The Reds finally broke through in the top of the eighth. With one out, Cardenas singled, then Nuxhall sacrificed him to second. Farrell knocked down Tommy Harper’s hard-hit liner; Harper was safe at first with a single and Cardenas made it to third.

Rose then ripped a long drive to right center over Wynn’s head for a triple, scoring both runners for a 2-0 Reds lead. The three-bagger was Rose’s third in as many games. 

Now with the lead, Nuxhall took a no-hitter into the bottom of the eighth. Astros right fielder Joe Gaines led off the inning with a walk. Triandos followed with a popout to Cardenas at short. Then Bob Lillis, batting .215 entering the game, lined a clean single to center, sending Gaines to third and spoiling the no-hitter. Nuxhall fanned Walt Bond, sent up to hit for Farrell, and retired Morgan on an easy fly to Vada Pinson in center to end the inning.   

After reliever Jim Owens kept the Reds scoreless in the top of the ninth, Nuxhall returned to finish the shutout. Lee Maye grounded out to short, Wynn flied out to left, and “Nux” struck out Thomas for the fourth time in the game for the final out. 

After the game, Nuxhall was quoted as saying, “I’m happy with the victory, but I sure would have liked to have the no-hitter.”6 It turned out to be the only one-hitter of Nuxhall’s major-league career.7  Astros’ manager Lum Harris raved about Nuxhall after the game, saying, “I don’t think that there is a better pitcher in baseball than Nuxhall was tonight. He had everything, control, a good slider, a tailing fastball. He had to have something for a left-hander to strike out that Thomas four times.”8  

The game was played in 1 hour and 56 minutes and was attended by 42,595. The split doubleheader drew a total paid crowd of 73,333. The Astros issued a press release after the game bragging that the combined attendance at the two games in Houston was greater than the total paid admission of the five American League games played that day.9

On Tuesday, July 27, Nuxhall was on the mound again, just three days after pitching a shutout in Houston. He pitched two innings of relief in Los Angeles, allowing one run in a 9-7 loss to the Dodgers. Then on July 30, Nuxhall celebrated his 37th birthday by pitching another complete game and beating the Astros in Cincinnati, 7-1.

The two stars of this game were the winner and runner-up as NL Player of the Month for July. Rose finished the month hitting .386 and knocking in 24 runs. Nuxhall was 6-1 for the month with four complete games, including this near-no-hitter.10 The Reds finished the season 89-73, in fourth place, eight games back of the Dodgers. The Astros ended up their first season indoors at 65-97, 32 games behind Los Angeles but 15 games ahead of the last-place Mets.

Indoor baseball proved to be extremely popular as evidenced by the attendance during 1965 season. A crowd of 30,000 happened only once in the three years the team spent as the Colt .45s. The Astros exceeded that figure 33 times during the inaugural season in the Astrodome. Their season total of 2,151,470 ranked second in major-league baseball only to the eventual World Series champion Dodgers. 

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks John Fredland and Kurt Blumenau for their review and comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Author’s Note

This was the first major-league baseball game I attended. I was 8 years old. We lived in Crowley, Louisiana (about 200 miles east of Houston), so we were in the targeted demographic for weekend series at the Astrodome. After the game we stayed with family friends in Eagle Lake, Texas. If I remember correctly, these friends arranged this outing for my family (Mom, Dad, one younger brother, and two younger sisters). This was the only game we went to that season. All of us kids were especially excited to see the animated scoreboard in action! Even though we did not see the Astros hit a home run or win the game, we were shown the amazing scoreboard show after the game, with the central board displaying “THANK YOU.”

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted AstrosDaily.com, baseball.reference.com, Retrosheet.org, Newspapers.com, and the Souvenir Program of the July 9, 1967, Cubs-Astros game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU196507242.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B07242HOU1965.htm

Notes

1 Clifford Kachline, “N.L. Gullivers Slash 1965 Average to 28,757 Miles,” The Sporting News, February. 20, 1965: 18.

2 Si Burick, “Nottebart Quiets Cincy Bats, 4-2,” Dayton Daily News, July 25, 1965: 9.

3 The Phillies had sold Triandos to the Astros on June 14. He played in 24 games with Houston, batting .181, before being released on August 20.

4 William C. Kashatus, September Swoon (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 149-154.

5 Thomas played in 23 games with Houston, batting .172, and the Astros traded him to the Milwaukee Braves on September 1.

6 Earl Lawson, “High Kick Boosts Jay’s Hill Rating,” The Sporting News, August 7, 1965: 4.

7 He had pitched a one-hitter in a Pacific Coast League game against Tacoma on June 30, 1962. “Scratch Single Keeps Pads’ Nuxhall From No-Hit Fame,” The Sporting News, July 14, 1962: 35.

8 John Wilson, “Bob Lillis’ Single Only Houston Hit Off Nuxhall,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1965: 4.

9 The five AL games and their attendance: Twins at Orioles (30,163), Angels at Red Sox (4,778), White Sox at Tigers (10,994), Athletics at Senators (2,675), and Yankees at Indians (21,136). The Yankees-Indians game crowd is listed in the Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference websites as 48,777, which includes nonpaid admissions. “Astros Day-Night Twin-Bill Draws a Total of 73,333,” The Sporting News, August 7, 1965: 11.

10 “Pete Rose Wins Accolade as N.L. Player of Month,” The Sporting News: August 14, 1965: 25.