The Houston Astrodome
- David Hegler
- May 11
- 8 min read
The Houston Astrodome certainly lived up to the hype. It was so much more than just the first domed stadium used for both baseball and football. It hosted a host of events big and small from boxing and tennis matches featuring the biggest stars of the era to basketball games that just might lead to a major change in the sport itself. While the Astrodome eventually was snuffed out by bigger, better stadiums, it still holds a special place in the heart of sports fans. This is its story.
The Conception
For years, p.r. guru George Kinksey and oil heir Craig Cullihan sought to bring a major league baseball team to Texas. All through the 1950's they tried and tried again until they were finally approved at the start of the 1960's. By then, they had been joined by a former judge and mayor of Houston, Roy Hofheinz, who was brimming with the machismo one needs to run a successful startup.
While Kinksey and Cullihand had been working on an open air ballpark, Hofheinz immediately saw the flaw in their plans. As a native Texan, he knew that the Texas sun was notoriously hot and would prove to be unforgiving and unrelenting upon the poor patrons who dared to watch a game with not a millimeter of shade.
Hofheinz had recently been rebuffed for a mall proposal that was topped with a dome and he was convinced that the dome concept would work in any environment, including athletics.
The newly minted Colt .45s built a temporary stadium in the parking lot of their planned dome stadium. For the next three years, patrons of Colt Stadium could watch the future being built before their eyes after enduring another ballgame under the hot Texas sun.
They broke ground uniquely on January 3, 1962 when seven officials fired rounds of wax bullets from Colt .45s into the ground. Under the guidance of the architectural firms of Lloyd & Morgan and Wilson, Morris, Crane & Anderson, Houston's new mini-metropolis began to take shape.
It was truly its own little world with luxury sky boxes that set the standard for generations, padded theater style seats throughout the facility, themed restaurants, a video scoreboard that never failed to entertain, a barbershop, a bowling alley and even a weather station. The new facility was so packed with activity that Bob Hope once quipped that "if they had a maternity ward and a cemetery, you would never have to leave".
Although it was initially labeled "the Harris County Domed Stadium", that named was trashed just before the Colt .45s moved in. With Colt Industries sniffing around for royalties for the club's right to use the Colt .45 name and likeness, Roy Hofheinz changed his baseball team's name to "the Astros" and quickly changed the name of his new stadium to match his baseball team. Thus, the Astrodome was born.
The Glory Years
On Friday night, April 9, 1965, the Houston Astrodome opened to a standing-room crowd of 47,876 eager to watch the newly-minted Houston Astros take on the defending AL champion New York Yankees in a three game exhibition series. Just a couple of states to the east, Fulton County Stadium opened on the same day to much less fanfare and publicity. This night was the Astrodome's.
The place was packed with celebrities such as President Lyndon B. Johnson and 21 astronauts eager to watch their namesakes at work. The crowd swooned in awe of the Yankees powerful lineup and watched with wonder as Mickey Mantle recorded the first hit in the new stadium's history, a single off of Dick Farrell.
A few innings later, Mantle recorded the first home run in a fully enclosed, air conditioned MLB ballpark. Through it all, the hometown team remained undaunted. Houston's Nellie Fox struck a single in the bottom of the 12th to drive in Jimmy Wynn for the winning run. The Astros beat an aging Yankees squad 2-1 to begin a new era in sports history.
Despite the publicity, there was just one glaring problem: glare. All through the Astrodome's inaugural season, outfielders complained about finding fly balls amidst the glare from the roof. So the Astrodome's operators painted over the roof, but that just killed the natural grass underneath.
It wasn't until the following offseason that roy Hofheinz found a suitable solution. For years, playgrounds around Houston had used an artificial surface called Chem Grass that had been created by scientists at Chemstrand. Once Hofheinz bought enough of it, they changed the product's name to the iconic "Astroturf". The first game that was played on Astroturf was an 8-2 Astros victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on July 19, 1966.
With the stage completely set, the Astrodome was off and running as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Six no-hitters were recorded in the dome's history as Don Wilson, Larry Dierker, Ken Fersch, Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott and Darryle Kile etched their name's into the storied structure. Further enhancing its reputation as one of baseball's grandest structures, the Astrodome also hosted the All-Star Game in 1968 and 1986.
Originally, it was assumed that no one could hit the roof with a batted ball, but Mike Schmidt put that theory to rest when he hit a ball into an overhead speaker in June 1974. Although it cost him a home run (it was ruled a single), he still went on to lead the majors with 36 that year.
Even though it was a domed structure, the Astrodome still experienced a rain postponement on June 15, 1976. With torrential rains flooding Houston's streets, the game was called off due to safety concerns. Even the umpires had trouble getting to the stadium and ultimately didn't even make it. With both teams and 20 die-hard fans having already arrived, tables were pulled in midfield and the teams shared a meal together while the fans were treated to dinner as well.
Hofheinz had always envisioned the Astrodome to be the ultimate entertainment venue, one that could host any number of events. In fact, baseball was just a small snippet of his grand plan. On January 20, 1968, the Houston Astrodome helped change college basketball forever when it hosted "the Game of the Century" between the University of Houston and defending national champion UCLA. Led by Lew Alcindor, the Bruins were riding a 47 game win streak. In front of a packed crowd of 52,693, the Cougars prevailed 71-69.
Aside from the big crowd, college basketball's leaders were enthused by the 12 million viewers who tuned in to the first college basketball game to be featured in prime time on national television. Since that epic night, the Final Four has hardly ever been played in a traditional basketball venue, with the last time being back in 1996 at the Meadowlands Arena. The Astrodome hosted the Final Four in 1971, finishing when UCLA beat Villanova 68-62 for the national championship in front of just 31,765, a far cry from the number they attracted just three years earlier.
College football loved the Astrodome too as the stadium hosted the Bluebonnet Bowl from 1968-1984 and again in 1987. In addition to the bowl game, the University of Houston played many of its home games there through 1992.
In September 1973, Billy Jean King battled Bobby Riggs in tennis's widely acclaimed "Battle of the Sexes" at the Astrodome. King won all three sets: 6-4, 6-3 and 6-3.
The Astrodome also hosted numerous boxing matches featuring some of the most famous fighters of the day. It was the backdrop of Muhammad Ali's win over Cleveland Williams in 1966 and was the site of a brutal bout between Larry Holmes and Randall Cobb in 1982. Cobb was beaten so badly in 15 rounds that famed announcer Howard Cosell refused to work any more fights.
When it first opened, the Astrodome hosted a Billy Graham Crusade that attracted more than 300,000 over the weekend. With that number in mind, the stadium's operators knew that concerts could big business for the Astrodome too. Throughout its history, it hosted stars such as Elvis Presley, Tony Bennett and Johnny Cash.
Just about the only thing that didn't go right in the Astrodome was soccer. The Houston Stars drew more than 30,000 to their first game in 1967, but they folded after 1968 as fans quickly lost interest. The Houston Hurricane faced the same predicament in the late 1970s and by the start of the next decade, they were no more.
Houston has always been more invested in football than soccer. In 1978, the NFL's Houston Oilers began to make some serious noise in the league. Behind the mighty legs of running back Earl Campbell and the competent passing of quarterback Dan Pastorini, the Oilers made it to the AFC championship twice to close out the decade, losing each time to the Pittsburgh Steelers. After each of those losses, the Oilers returned to a packed Astrodome, with 60,000 filling the aisle and another 15,000 waiting outside. Although the team had lost, their fans remained invigorated and hopeful for the future.
In 1986, the Astros reached the NLCS for the first time in their history. In Game 6, the Astros quickly took a three run lead before the Mets responded in the ninth inning to force extra innings. At the top of the 14th, Wally Backman struck a single home run to give New York the lead, but Houston rendered that homer moot as Billy Hatcher responded with a home run of his own.
At the top of the 16th, both teams were exhausted and drained as the crowd roared and groaned with every swing. The Mets scored three and held on at the bottom of the 16th to win the game 7-6. While both the Astros and Oilers would play there and enjoy some additional success for several more years, this game was the Astrodome's last hurrah.
The End of an Era
The Astrodome had been the envy of the sports world for a decade when New Orleans opened its own structure that had been built with one goal in mind: to be bigger and better than the Houston Astrodome. Suddenly, the Astrodome was not the biggest attraction in the sports world. While it would remain a good attraction for decades, the Superdome spelled nothing but trouble for the Astrodome.
The Oilers were the first to go. After beginning the decade as one of the NFL's premier offensive teams, age and greed took over a once proud franchise as attendance dwindled to historic lows. After the Oilers lost to the Cincinnati Bengals 21-13 on December 15, 1996, they packed up their stuff and moved to Tennessee, eventually becoming the Titans.
The Astros were the complete opposite of the Oilers as they finished their stay by going to the playoffs in each of their last three years in the Astrodome, losing each time in the NLDS. After losing to the Atlanta Braves 7-5 on October 9, 1999, the Astros packed up their belongings and moved into Enron Field to end a glorious era.
In 2004, Friday Night Lights joined Brewster McCloud and The Bad News Bears as the only movies to be filmed at the Astrodome. The following year, the old dome provided shelter for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
In 2013, the National Trust for Historical Preservations put it on the list of 11 most endangered historic structures. The next year, it earned the esteemed recognition of the National Register for Historic Places. The Astrodome's future remains murky to this day while the Houston Texans play just a few feet away in NRG Stadium, an indoor structure that has all the trappings that the Astrodome had but without the heart.
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