Clem's Baseball home

Colt Stadium
Home of the former
Houston Colt 45s (1962-1964)




Colt Stadium diagram
Astrodome
Key to diagrams

Vital statistics:
Lifetime Seating capacity Seating rows
(typical)
Overhang / shade % Territory
(1,000 sq. ft.)
Fence height  CF
orien- tation
Back-stop Outfield dimensions The Clem Criteria:
Built Demo- lished Lower deck Mezz. Upper deck Lower deck Upper deck Fair Foul LF CF RF Left
field
Left-center Center field Right-center Right field Field
asym- metry
Arch.
design
Seat
prox- imity
Loc- ation Aesth- etics Over- all
1962 1971* 33,010 48 - - 0% - 122.3 31.7 8 30 8 NE 60 360 395 420 395 360 2 3 4 4 3 3.2

* The Colts moved out after 1964; in the early 1970s it was dismantled and shipped to Torreon, Mexico.

ALL STAR GAMES: none

The city of Houston received one of the National League's two new expansion franchises in 1962, and the "Colt 45s" became the first Major League team based in a former Confederate state. Their original home, Colt Stadium, was one of those mysterious temporary stadiums associated with abrupt relocations and expansions, like Sick's Stadium in Seattle or Seals Stadium in San Francisco. Like Jarry Park in Montreal, Colt Stadium was a rudimentary, roofless single-deck ballpark with symmetrical outfield and straight fences, a mere stop-gap facility pending construction of what became known as the Astrodome. It was distinguished from the other temporary stadiums by its very long field dimensions, and the 30-foot tall center field wall made home runs in that direction virtually impossible. Colt Stadium was also unique among temporary stadiums in that it was built from scratch. (The others in that category had already been in existence for a number of years.) Without a roof to protect fans from the extremely hot south Texas afternoons, it was just like Arlington Stadium.

thumbnail Not only was Colt Stadium hot, it was also plagued by mosquitos, adding to the fans' misery. These factors explain why average attendance for games in 1963 and 1964 fell to less than 9,000, the worst in the National League. Likewise, the new Houston team consistently finished near the bottom of the National League for the first few years of its existence, just ahead of the Mets. The difficulty in attracting fans to such an unbearable venue accentuated the need to finish construction of the climate-controlled Astrodome. The new stadium was being built right next door, on the southeast side. The "Colt 45s" moved out of Colt Stadium after the 1964 season and moved into the space-age Astrodome, changing their name to the "Astros" to fit their new home. In the early 1970s Colt Stadium was dismantled and moved to the twin cities of Torreson-Gomez Palacio, in northern Mexico.

SOURCES: Lowry (2006), baseball-reference.com, astrosdaily.com

Colt Stadium:
Chronology of diagram updates


 



NOTE: The diagram thumbnails have been continually replaced since 2008, so the images seen in the older blog posts do not reflect how the full-size diagrams looked at that time. Roll your mouse over the adjacent thumbnail to see a pre-2008 version.

ColtStadium
 
13 Jun 2005 19 Sep 2008 21 Jun 2011 08 Jun 2013

Vox populi: Fans' impressions

Have you been to this stadium? If so, feel free to share your impressions of it with other fans! (Registration is required.) Also, I welcome submissions of original stadium photos that fans have taken, and will make sure they get properly credited. Just send me an e-mail message via the Contact page.


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