As many of you know, I have written many times about my obsession with the Houston Astros uniforms from the 1970's and 1980's. I've even taken a shot at redesigning the team's uniforms to bring back the old style Astros logos and styling.
Today's column was written by Bob Hulsey who is the editor of a great site devoted to the Houston Astros called AstrosDaily.com. Astros Daily is a site loaded with up to the minute information about the Astros and about the team's history. Bob wrote this great piece about the uniform history of the Houston Astros, called "From Pistols to Pinstripes". I thought the readers of SDB would really enjoy the information contained in Bob's story and he has allowed me to share it with you. Enjoy!
By Bob Hulsey, AstrosDaily.com
Houston's baseball uniforms throughout their National League history
have gone from mild to wild to plentiful, reflecting the fashions of
the times as well as the preferences of the ownership. When the
franchise began, a "name that team" contest was held with the winner
entering the "Colt .45s - The Gun That Won The West." To distinguish
the team as pistols, not pintos, the first uniforms featured block
lettered ".45s" on the caps and a gun with wisps of smoke creating the
word "Colts" across the chest of the home jerseys.
The color scheme of navy blue and orange was chosen by General
Manager Paul Richards, who took the orange from the Baltimore Orioles
organization he had led before joining the Colts. The caps were navy
with orange lettering. The jerseys had a navy and white gun with orange
smoke outlined in navy forming the lettering. The socks were navy and
white stripes with orange stirrups. The road grey uniforms featured the
same cap and socks but with the word Houston across the jerseys. Back
then, names on the back of the jerseys were not present - only numbers.
The fabric of the times was flannel - a tradition carried over from
when the sport was played mostly in the Northeast. It was loose fitting
but thick and it was ill-suited for hot Texas summers. A lighter cut
was used to clothe the Colt .45s, but it still wasn't light enough.
"Sure, it was uncomfortable when it was 100 degrees and we were
out there in those things," said Bob Aspromonte once in an interview.
"But we didn't have anything to compare them to so we just accepted it.
I was always glad that we didn't have the same stuff that they wore in
Brooklyn. Those things were like blankets."
Since the Colt .45s couldn't do much about their clothes, they
found other ways to try to beat the heat. On a broiling July afternoon
in 1962, pitcher Bob Bruce took off his shoes between innings and
soaked his feet in an ice bucket. "Bob Gibson and I did not waste a
pitch the whole game. The game was over in like one hour and 20
minutes," said Bruce.
Nobody was happier about playing in the air-conditioned domed
stadium, when it opened in 1965, than the players and coaches who
endured Colt Stadium. But the move indoors coincided with other
changes. A feud between Judge Roy Hofheinz and the Colt Firearms
Company over merchandising caused the Judge to drop the guns and
embrace the emerging space program for their moniker. Hofheinz named
the team "the Astros" which necessitated a change in uniforms.
While the color scheme remained the same, the guns on the
jerseys were replaced with the navy word "Astros" trimmed in orange. A
navy star was positioned to the right of the heart with streaks of
orange to indicate the star was traveling across the sky. After early
versions of the cap with a simple orange block "H" on a navy background
were worn during the spring, the club unveiled caps with a white "H"
over an orange star on the navy cap. This style or some variation of it
would last for almost 30 years. An orange star was also added to the
new navy blue stirrups. This uniform represented the Astros through the
rest of the decade.
By 1970, many of the fashion trends of the late 1960s had taken root,
including longer hair and loud colors. In 1971, the Astros followed by
keeping their exact same uniform style as before but inverting the
colors so orange dominated instead of blue, which became a lighter
shade of blue than the traditional navy. Player surnames were added to
the backs of the jerseys. The uniforms were made of a new fabric
revolutionizing the industry - polyester. The wardrobe included elastic
waistbands (replacing belts) and zippered jerseys instead of buttons.
This fabric could stretch with the moves of the players, allowing the
uniforms to be more form-fitting and less baggy.
"They had a lot of give in them so they were more comfortable,"
said Roger Metzger, the team's shortstop during that era. "They also
had the same effect that thermals do, so they were warmer to wear."
Although popular, these uniforms would last only four seasons until the
Astros would reveal a style that shocked both the baseball and fashion
worlds.
Since early in the century, major league baseball teams had stuck
to a formula of wearing predominantly white uniforms at home and
predominantly grey uniforms on the road. Charlie Finley of the Oakland
A's introduced (or re-introduced since there were records of past teams
who wore non-traditional colors, including the 1903 New York Giants
caught on movie film decked in black jerseys with black pants) green
jerseys and yellow jerseys into their wardrobes in the early 1970s.
While controversial, the colored jerseys gained general acceptance.
Soon afterward, the Atlanta Braves introduced blue jerseys
with tiled art flowers on the sleeves, prompting Astros third baseman
Doug Rader to heckle them, "What'll it be tonight, boys? Fast pitch or
slow pitch?"
Rader didn't know he'd soon be on the receiving end. Before the
1975 season, the advertising firm of McCann and Erickson was hired to
re-brand the Astros. Their creation combined a futuristic use of
eye-catching color and a touch of early-century lettering that was
outrageous to baseball traditionalists. The early prototype was modeled by pitcher Tom Griffin.
The white cap was ultimately rejected for the current orange cap with
the blue star and the white 'H'. The jersey star was switched to navy.
The uniform number was moved up to the right hip from closer to the
knee and other minor modifications were made. The "rainbow" uniforms
made their debut in April 1975 and they took some getting used to, even
for those wearing them.
"We had all heard that we were going to get new uniforms for
the start of the season," Metzger said, "and the word had gotten around
that they were kind of flashy. But the first day we saw them, I think
there were three or four of us looked at each other and wondered if
they were really serious."
"We thought it was just one of the Judge's promotions, like the
cowboy suits he had us wear," said pitching coach Cot Deal, alluding to
the 1962 effort to dress all the Colt .45s in cowboy duds for road
trips - an idea that was ridiculed by the players and eventually
dropped.
"(The rainbows) were a little bit radical but I got used to them," added play-by-play broadcaster Gene Elston.
The prominent focus of the jerseys were a bright cascading series
of orange, yellow, red and even hot pink stripes with a large navy star
covering the midsection. The stripes were described as representing the
comet trails in the prior Astro uniforms taken to a much greater scale.
The name "Astros" was positioned in navy above the stripes, over the
heart. The stripes stopped in the middle of the back where a white
circle bordered in navy housed the uniform number while the player
surname rested above. These were also the first uniforms to feature
numbers on the pants.
On the field, players resembled large orange popsicles and they
received a great deal of heckling and criticism from fans and the
media. Fortunately for Rader, he was traded midway through the 1975
season, although one can debate if the mustard and brown uniforms of
the San Diego Padres were that much less sartorically offensive. So
dramatically different were the rainbow jerseys (as they were often
described) that the Astros wore the same uniforms on the road that they
did at home. After all, who was going to confuse these players with
anyone else?
Within a year or two, the white circle in the back disappeared
and the lettering changed. Somewhere around this time, zippered jerseys
gave way to pullovers. By 1980, the Astros had new ownership and it was
said that the owner's wife, Mrs. John McMullen, did not like the color
orange. Changes were soon to come.
Road greys made their return during the 1980 season in a style that
toned down the look considerably. The rainbows were limited to the
shoulders and down the sleeves while the navy "Astros" flashed across
the chest. The navy caps with the orange star also returned. The pant
numbers were gone from the road uniforms as well.
In 1982, a home version of the uniform in white instead of
grey, began appearing for Sundays and special dates. The reactions were
generally positive. Both versions received widespread national
attention as the Astros made the playoffs in 1980 and 1986.
Little did the fans who rooted in Game 6 of the National League
Championship Series at the Astrodome know that they were seeing the
farewell of the rainbows as an Astros uniform, except for special
promotional dates. Despite the criticism when they were first
introduced and continues still today among some in the media, the
rainbow jerseys were copied by colleges, high schools and little
leagues. In a final irony, the eye-grabbing jerseys began to be worn in
rap music videos as a sign of being "old school" and eccentrically
chic.
The McMullens sold the Astros to Drayton McLane, Jr. in 1992 and he
began to change the image of the Astrodome and their primary tenants.
In 1994, the Astros must have made Mrs. McMullen happy by dropping
orange from the color scheme. Navy blue was replaced by a darker
midnight blue while a metallic gold served as the accent color, the
first time a big league team had used any metallic color in their
equipment. Anyone who recalls footage of the moonwalks would
immediately make the connection between gold coloring and many of the
items that went to the moon.
Gone too were the rainbow striping and the "H" on the caps. The
jerseys had a midnight blue and gold "Astros" lettering across the home
jerseys and "Houston" across the road jerseys, slanted as if to give
motion to the letters. The last "o" in either word changed to a slanted
star-like object. The midnight blue caps had a slanted gold and white
star, best described by one writer as resembling third baseman Ken
Caminiti starting to dive to his left. Belts and buttons made a
comeback. There was also a blue jersey for Sundays and holidays.
"I think these uniforms symbolize the current change this club
is undergoing," general manager Bob Watson told the Houston Chronicle.
"They're very sleek and the star is moving awfully fast. That should
give everyone an indication that this club is moving fast and on the
rise. This helps us look like champions."
Speaking of champions, more than a few fans thought the new
look copied a little too closely a successful pro football team whose
star logo could be found all over the state.
"Absolutely not. We tried to steer completely clear of the
Cowboys' star," said Anne Occi of Major League Baseball who consulted
on the design with Image Communications of Temple. "If you look at the
two stars, they are completely different."
Uh, okay.
During their last two seasons, the road jerseys no longer had a
small star replacing the second "o" in Houston but instead there was a
much larger star that took up almost half of the front of the jersey.
The midnight blue and gold uniforms were billed as being futuristic but
their future held only for six seasons, despite three straight Central
Division titles. With the move from the Astrodome to a new downtown
park with a retractable roof, another makeover began.
The new yard was being built into the grounds of Union Station,
the former railroad depot that had served Houstonians for the first
half of the 20th Century. To highlight the past, the space-aged Astros
began to incorporate a railroad theme into their look, creating a
confusing image but one that sold well nonetheless.
The Astros introduced an entirely new color scheme featuring a
rich red, a dusty yellow and black - said to represent black, brick and
sand. Whether as a marketing strategy or simply coincidence, the red
and black were also trendy for gang apparel and mirrored the colors
used by McLane's grocery distribution company.
For the first time, the Astros' home uniforms were decked in
pinstripes. Supporters saw the pinstripes as a reflection of the
successful New York Yankee dynasties. Critics saw the pinstripes as a
reflection of the far less successful Chicago Cubs. The word "Astros"
was in script lettering across the front. The player's number is in red
under the team name.
The road uniforms are primarily grey. The jersey says "Houston" in
script with the player's number in black under the team name. The
primary cap is black with a red star but an alternate cap is also
introduced that is red with a black star. The star differs from the
blue and gold one of the previous years. It is thicker and more upright
but still has the opening on the left side to imply movement.
Alternate looks run amok with alternate black jerseys,
alternate red jerseys and alternate white jerseys also to be worn. The
white home jerseys come with just the star logo on the front rather
than the team name and uniform number. A different white alternate home
jersey looks like the regular home jerseys but without the pinstripes.
Someone who has seen every version of Astros uniform up close
over the years, Larry Dierker, said,"I think the prevailing thought
when we found out they were going to change uniforms was, `Oh, no.
What's wrong with the ones we have?' Now that everyone has seen them,
they like them. Sometimes when you're going to change, you're afraid it
might be for the worst."
Over time, the black jerseys have fallen out of favor - perhaps
because of the Texas heat. The red jerseys, on the other hand, have
become more prominent after the team found themselves winning in them
during the playoff runs of 2004 and 2005. In 2008, a red jersey with
grey pants became the primary look for road games.
One thing is certain. The uniforms are likely to change again. The
longest any Houston uniform style has lasted is 14 years (the rainbow
sleeves which overlapped the fuller rainbow jerseys for seven seasons
were used from 1980 to 1993). So it can be said that Astro uniforms are
like the Texas weather. If you don't like it, just wait because it'll
change.
