Site map
ALL STAR GAMES: 1968, 1986
I remember what a huge impact the Astrodome had on baseball when it was built in 1965, back when the space race was in full swing, the economy was booming, and no one questioned the unstoppable March of Progress. Actually, this revolutionary dome-stadium concept had been considered in Brooklyn back in the 1950s, but when the city resisted sharing the cost of the proposed "Sports Center," the Dodgers split. Inherent defects in this marvelous climate-controlled sports arena were soon revealed, however, as the glare from the roof window panes prevented fielders from seeing fly balls. In response, the panes were painted dull translucent white, but the consequent reduction in sunlight killed the grass. This left the Astros with little choice but to install an artificial playing surface that became known as Astroturf. This terrible "plague" was unleashed in 1966. For five years the entire infield was dirt, but in 1971 the infield was covered with Astroturf except for the areas around each base.
The Astrodome was almost perfectly symmetrical, with the same kind of "paired swivelable circular section lower deck" (PSCSLD) configuration that Shea Stadium had pioneered the year before. The original outfield dimensions were 406 feet to center and 340 to the foul poles, but inner fences were installed in 1972, reducing the distances by several feet. The original longer dimensions were restored in 1977, but in 1985 they once again reduced the distances. It didn't seem to help much, as the Astros never won a National League pennant while playing in the Astrodome, though they did win divisional titles in 1980 and 1986.
As originally constructed, the Astrodome had four decks of widely varying sizes plus a skybox level, but for almost the entire outfield there was only a single level. Actually, The "bleacher" section in center field was 10-15 feet lower than the upper, nonmovable part of the lower deck that extended around the right- and left-field corners. The only other place where this version of the PSCSLD configuration was used was in (the new) Busch Stadium II. After 24 years they finally got around to extending the upper three decks all the way around the outfield, thereby increasing the Astrodome's capacity by nearly 9,000 seats. However, this eliminated the big scoreboards that used to line the huge walls behind the "bleachers," so they built new scoreboards in the right- and left-field corners. This was the apparent reason for the decrease in the distance to the foul poles from 330 to 325 feet in 1992.
The Houston Oilers shared the Astrodome with the Astros from 1968 until 1996, after which they moved to Tennessee and after one year of uncertainty in Memphis, they changed their name to the Titans. They left town only eight years after the Astrodome was expanded, however, and that investment ended up as a terrible waste. Those upper deck outfield seats were hardly ever used for baseball games.
As with Shea Stadium, this dual-use circular stadium lost its reason for being when the football team left town, and the Astros realized that their "space-age" wonder had become an archaic burden that they could never hope to fill. So, they persuaded the Houston city government to chip in and build the ultra-modern "Enron Field" (now called "Minute Maid Park") in downtown Houston, where they moved in 2000. In October 1999, 48,553 people watched the Atlanta Braves win the last game ever played at the Astrodome, thereby advancing to the National League Championship Series. The Astrodome is still open, used for monster truck shows, conventions, etc. The football seating configuration is now more or less permanent.
In September 2005 the Astrodome became the principal temporary housing facility for several thousand survivors of Hurricane Katrina, most of whom were from New Orleans and had initially taken refuge in the Superdome.
SOURCES: Lowry (2006), USA Today / Fodor's (1996), Gershman (1993), Rosen (2001), Baseball Stadiums 2003 Panoramic Calendar, New York Times
