From .45 Caliber to Intergalactic: The National League Houston Astros

Look back 33 years, and it’s easy to see what has happened to the game of baseball from a financial standpoint.

In October 1960, the National League expanded while awarding franchises to New York and Houston. One year later, the old Houston Colt .45s selected 23 players in the expansion draft for a grand total of $1.85 million. The average cost per player was approximately $80,000 — that’s $29,000 below the 1994 minimum for one-year major league salary!

And since George Kirksey (originally given credit for primary responsibility for bringing major league baseball to Texas) and those who later fell in line to reach that ultimate goal — Craig Cullinen, Judge Roy Hofheinz, and R.E. “Bob” Smith (for whom the College Player of the Year Award is named) — the Houston franchise has had 17 winning seasons (four at exactly .500) and 15 losing campaigns.

The 1975-80 turnaround from the depths of 43 games out of first place (1975) to a divisional championship in ’80 still stands as one of baseball’s great comebacks.

From humble beginnings at a park designed for the Houston Buffaloes of the old Texas League to one of the most futuristic edifices of its time, the Houston Astros have left a legacy on professional baseball in the Lone Star State as well as the nation.

Humbly, the old Houston Colt .45s, led by Most Valuable Player Bob Lillis, introduced regular-season Major League Baseball to Texas with a 11-2 triumph over the Chicago Cubs on April 10, 1962. It has been a long and fascinating, yet oftentimes frustrating, road to the present level of contention for pennants on an almost annual basis in Houston.

On April 23, 1964, Astros pitcher Ken Johnson became the first major leaguer to lose a nine-inning no-hitter — in this case a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the Reds.

One year later, though, the Colt .45s became the Houston Astros, moved into the then-premier indoor sports facility in the country at the Astrodome and started sports history with a 2-1 exhibition win indoors over the New York Yankees on April 9 in spite of the first indoor home run in major league history by longtime Dallas resident Mickey Mantle.

The largest Astrodome baseball crowd in history, 50,908, viewed a June 22, 1966, win by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax over the Astros. Righthander Don Wilson wowed Houston partisans almost a year later on June 18, 1967, with a 2-0 no-hitter of the Atlanta Braves with Henry Aaron as the final out of the game via a strikeout.

By 1971, however, things were starting to turn around for the Harris County team in its final year as Texas’s lone major league franchise. Cesar Cedeno lead the league with 40 doubles while ever-present Joe Morgan shared the NL lead for triples with teammate Roger Metzger of the Astros.

Offseason acquisitions of Lee May, Tommy Helms, and Jimmy Stewart helped the 1972 Astros post their best record ever at 84-69 and to notch second place in the NL West. A year later, Cedeno established a “50-20” precedent by becoming the first player in history to steal 50 bases and hit 20 homers in back-to-back seasons.

In 1975 future General Manager Bob Watson continued to endear himself to Houston fans with team-leading totals of 157 hits, 85 RBIs, and a .324 average. Pitcher Larry Dierker paced the staff with 14 wins en route to a successful broadcasting career.

Pitcher J.R. Richard, later to have his career ended by illness, became the Astros’ second 20-game winner in 1976 while Cedeno set a team record with 58 stolen bases and won a fifth consecutive Gold Glove Award.

Behind Richard’s 313 strikeouts in 1979, the stage was set for Houston’s first-ever title as the Astros conquered the NL West with a 93-70 record. Venerable Joe Niekro paved the way with a 20-victory season while Joe Morgan returned to provide critical leadership at second base.

A year later, the Astros utilized a September 26, 1981, no-hitter (the fifth of his career) by Nolan Ryan and a NL-best 1.69 ERA by the Alvin resident to catapult to a playoff spot again with a 33-20 record in the second half of a strike-riddled 1981.

The 1983 and ’84 campaigns were times of promise for Houston, though slow starts doomed the team in both years. 1983 was the year in which Ryan surpassed the immortal Walter Johnson as the majors’ career strikeout leader, and the all-time “K-Meister” reached what some thought might be an unattainable 4,000th whiff for the 1985 Astros.

Houston’s Silver Anniversary season in 1986 produced a second NL West championship, a record 96 wins under first-year manager Hal Lanier, 306 strikeouts with 18 wins from Cy Young Award recipient Mike Scott, and NL MVP runner-up honors for Houston first sacker Glenn Davis.

In 1987 Nolan Ryan showed he could still reach down and throw his patented “heat” to go along with a wicked circle change to end the year with a major league-most 270 strikeouts and NL-leading ERA of 2.76.

Following a career-best 34 home runs during the 1989 season by Davis, Houston groomed another youngster for superstardom in 1991 when Jeff Bagwell notched Rookie of the Year laurels with a .294 average, 15 homers, and Houston rookie record 82 RBIs.

1992 was the year of the majors’ longest modern road trip — some 26 days — by the Astros and the Republican National Convetion (the culprit for that trek) in the course of an eventful time which saw relief ace Doug Jones compile a club-record 36 saves in one year.

Offense-minded Houston pleased new owner Drayton McLane Jr., with franchise records for batting average (.267), home runs (138) and doubles (288) last season and laid the groundwork for competition in the National League’s realigned Central Division. Early in 1994 activity, it appeared that the Cincinnati Reds, Astros, and Cardinals were going to be in the thick of the final battle for Central supremacy.

Baseball characters such as Jim Ray, Joaquin Andujar, Doug Rader, Bo Belinsky, Joe Pepitone, Jim Bouton, Jackie Brandt, Julio Gotay, Charlie Kerfeld, and Cliff Johnson, among others, helped add to the colorful history of the Astros along with the front-office legends such as Tal Smith, Gabe Paul, Pat Gillick, Bill Giles, Gerry Hunsicker, Ed Wade, and Jim Wilson.

With such nationally significant events as the opening of the Astrodome in 1965 to the tune of a 2,515,470 draw for that season to the entrepreneurial talents of Judge Hofheinz to the faithful support of the community-minded Bob Smith, the Astros can be summed up aptly in the phrase, “That’s entertainment!”

From a foundling franchise drawing crowds in the lower 10,000s in the early 1960s to a squad which annually passes the 1.9 million mark, the Houston Astros (née .45s) truly have experienced “Astro-nomical” growth along with the city of Houston.

GENE ELSTON (1922-2015) was the longtime radio broadcaster for the Houston Astros, a Texas Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, and 2006 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award.