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Meet the Astros The city of Houston Texas has grown faster and gone through more changes than almost any other place in America Every year people from all over the world move there for the warm weather and the business opportunities What they all have in common mmon is their baseball team the Astros You can’t call yourself a f a Houstonian unless you call yourself an Astros fan The Astros celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2011 They did not win a championship in their first half century though it was never for a lack of trying No team works harder to put good players on the field and no team has players that love baseball more than the Astros This book tells the story of the Astros Like the city of Houston itself the team has had many exciting moments to go with a few ups and downs Perhaps that is why win or lose se Astros fans always believe a championship is just a year away Houston fans and players celebrate Craig Biggio’s 3,000th hit Biggio was a lifelong Astro playing for the team from 1988 to 2007 5
Glory Days T he 1962 season was an exciting one for baseball fans The National League NL added two new teams The Mets played their first season in New York and a team called the Colt 45s took the field in Houston A Colt 45 was a powerful pistol used in the Old West Houston fans simply called their team the Colts The Colts gave many young players a chance to prove themselves which was fun for the fans But the team lost more often than it won which was not nearly as much fun The fans hoped Houston’s luck would change in 1965 when the club moved into a fabulous new indoor ballpark called the Astrodome That year the team also changed its name to Astros Batted balls did not travel far in the Astrodome That put greater importance on pitching and defense for Houston The Astros 6
realized this and signed a number of hard-throwing pitchers including Larry Dierker Don Wilson and J R Richard Dierker was the first Astro to win 20 games in a season Wilson threw two no-hitters and once struck out 18 batters in a game Richard was the first right handed pitcher in NL history with more than 300 strikeouts in a season Finding batters who could do well in the Astrodome was a challenge During the 1960s and 1970s the team had a number of talented hitters including Rusty Staub Joe Morgan Jim Wynn Doug Rader Cesar Cedeno Bob Watson Lee May Enos Cabell Jose Cruz and Terry Puhl But it just wasn’t enough Houston had a winning record only twice in its first 17 seasons During the 1980s the Astros finally turned things around They had a winning record almost every year of the decade Houston was led by great starting pitchers such as Nolan Ryan Joe Niekro LEFT The Astrodome is full for Opening Day in 1965 ABOVE Rusty Staub was one of the Astros early heroes 7
