Houston's Colt Stadium finally gets its historical marker with heat, mosquitoes and all
· Yahoo Sports
The tales of the oppressive heat and swarms of mosquitoes at the old Colt Stadium have become stuff of legend. Now, those memories will live forever with their spot on a Texas Historical Marker unveiled Tuesday at the stadium's original location, in front of Reliant Center, just about 80 yards north of the Astrodome.
Colt Stadium was built as a temporary home for the Houston Colt .45s as the city hurriedly prepared for its first Major League Baseball team. When the Colt .45s first took the field against the Chicago Cubs on opening day in 1962, ground already had been broken on the Astrodome just beyond the right-field foul line of Colt Stadium. The Colt .45s played three seasons in their makeshift home, before transforming into the Astros and moving across the parking lot and into the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Visit moryak.biz for more information.
Colt Stadium's Texas Historical Marker plaque
Here's what is written on the plaque ...
On October 17, 1960, Major League Baseball's National League awarded two new franchises that would play ball in 1962 as the New York Mets and the Houston Colt .45s. While construction of the Astrodome was underway as Houston's future home field, contractor D.M. "Red" Dozier built Colt Stadium on adjoining land as a temporary ballpark, a Major League first. It featured a single unshaded tier with multi-colored seats between foul poles and limited seating beyond the outfield. The large playing field measured 360 feet down the foul lines and 420 feet to straightaway center field. The seating capacity was about 33,000. On April 10, 1962, Colt Stadium hosted the first Major League Baseball game in Texas. In that game, Houston beat the Chicago Cubs 11-2, led by a pair of three-run homers from right fielder Román Mejías.
Notorious features of Colt Stadium were the heat and mosquitoes. One Sunday doubleheader in mid-summer proved so stifling that more than 100 fans required medical aid. The grounds crew regularly sprayed mosquito repellant across the field between innings and repellant was sold at concession stands. In the inaugural season, attendance of 925,000 was good for seventh out of 10 National League teams. Home teams witnessed two no-hitters and many future Hall of Famers in Colt Stadium's three seasons. The final game played was a 12-inning 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 27, 1964. It was also the final appearance of the Colt .45s, as the name changed to the Astros the following season in the completed domed stadium. Monsanto Engineers used the empty Colt Stadium to test the durability of their new artificial surface called "Astroturf." The bleachers were eventually dismantled and sold in 1970, later reassembled and used for baseball stadiums in Torreón and Tampico, Mexico.
The temporary stadium had a capacity of about 33,000, but it was all one level with no upper deck, so there wasn't a spot of shade in sight.
The ballpark's heat in the summer became so infamous that when Cubs manager Charlie Metro brought his team to town that first season, he threatened a $100 fine for any of his players who even mentioned how hot it was. Future Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, known for his cheerful "Let's play two!" expression, slammed his bat down in frustration in the visitors' dugout that series and said, "Good Lord, it's hot out there," before he spotted the glare of Metro and added, "But that's just the way I like it."
A view of the scoreboard at Colt Stadium during a Houston Colt .45s-Los Angeles Dodgers game on April 29, 1964 in Houston. (Hy Peskin/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)Larry Dierker pitched just once in Colt Stadium, making his big-league debut there on his 18th birthday in 1964. Fortunately for him, it was played on a September evening with low temperatures in the 70s.
"I was 18 years old and I was in the major leagues, so I didn't even notice how hot it was, and I didn't even notice how big the mosquitoes were, although it was that hot and they were there," Dierker said after the marker's unveiling. "Fortunately, we didn't have to stay there very long before we moved into the Dome."
For all its flaws, Colt Stadium still was a special place, especially considering it was built for just $1.2 million with ground breaking in August 1961 and the first pitch being thrown just eight months later on April 10, 1962. By comparison, the Astrodome cost about $35 million (an estimated $390 million in today's dollars) and took more than three years to finish.
"If it hadn't been for Colt Stadium, you wouldn't have had that," said longtime Colt .45s and Astros executive Tal Smith, pointing to the Astrodome.
Aerial of Astrodome and the temporary Colt Stadium in Houston, May 19, 1965. The stadium was a hastily constructed, temporary facility for Houston's expansion baseball team, originally known as the Colt .45s, while the world's first domed stadium was constructed nearby. (Richard Pipes/Houston Chronicle)As the home of an expansion team, Colt Stadium didn't see a ton of winning for the boys with ".45s" on their caps, who lost 96 games in each of their first three seasons before switching identities and moving into the world's first air-conditioned, domed sports stadium. However, it brought some of the game's all-time greats to town, including the likes of Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson. The Colt .45s also threw a pair of no-hitters there with Don Nottebart tossing the franchise's first no-hitter in 1963 and Ken Johnson repeating the feat in 1964, although it came in a 1-0 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
When everyone realized it was going to be a struggle to grow grass inside the Astrodome, Colt Stadium was used as a testing ground for what would become known as Astroturf, which eventually became the norm for many stadiums across the country.
Once the Astrodome was fully up and running, Judge Roy Hofheinz, the man who helped bring Major League Baseball to Houston and the mastermind behind the Dome, had the colorful seats of Colt Stadium painted gray so it wouldn't take away from the wonderment of the new building. A Houston Chronicle article in 1965 said the Judge sent workers out to the multi-colored seats and ordered them to "color it vanish."
04/1962 - The Houston Colt .45s, considered one of the most colorful franchises in Major League Baseball, had costumed uniforms for stadium workers including this press box attendant in Colt Stadium. (Owen Johnson/Houston Chronicle)In that first year of the Astrodome, the team occasionally used the old Colt Stadium as a practice field and years later Dierker remembers it even less fondly.
"There was talk that the pitchers weren't going to be in good enough shape from pitching inside the air-conditioning of the Dome, so we might struggle when we go on the road and pitch in the heat outdoors," Dierker recalled. "So, we were told to go across the street into the old stadium. The grass by that point was about this high (holding up a hand to his waist), except for a 20- or 30-foot path cut into it and that was for the pitchers to goover and run before games at the Dome."
Even if a bulk of the memories are heat-related or about avoiding mosquitoes - Houston historian Mike Vance, who wrote the text for the historical marker, notes that the bug problem only was exacerbated by the giant hole dug into the ground for the Astrodome's lower bowl which "became the world's largest mosquito breeding pond every time it rained" - it's still a spot that represents the achievements of Houstonians like Hofheinz and original Houston Sports Association members R.E. "Bob" Smith, George Kirksey and Craig Cullinan, who brought Major League Baseball to Houston.
"They recognized the necessity to give people a place where they could have hope, where they could have dreams, where they could understand that Houston is world-renowned," said Dinn Mann, the grandson of Hofheinz. "That Houston is a launching pad for amazing achievement and wonderment and Colt Stadium was the start of that. Colt Stadium was sort of the original launching pad. It's like we took off at Colt Stadium and we landed on the moon that was the Astrodome."
Subscribe
There’s more to Houston with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Houston's Colt Stadium finally gets its historical marker with heat, mosquitoes and all.