Baseball’s Other Expansion Team of 1962: Fifty Years of Frustration in the National League Ends for Houston

Abstract

While the attention of the baseball world was drawn to the San Francisco Giants' 2012 World Series triumph and speculation about what roster changes the New York Yankees would make following their disappointing performance in the American League Championship Series, another baseball milestone received scant attention. After fifty years of futility in the National League, the Houston Astros switched their affiliation to the American League (AL) West. Ostensibly, the Houston club will now be able to foster a natural rivalry with the AL West Texas Rangers, increasing interest for the sport in the Lone Star State. During its fifty-year tenure in the National League, the Houston franchise won six division titles and made two playoff appearances as a wild card entry. In 2005, Houston won its only National League pennant and played the Chicago White Sox in the World Series. The White Sox swept the Series in four games, still leaving the Houston ball club without a World Series victory. Since that World Series appearance, the club has suffered a steady decline. The Houston Astros achieved the dubious distinction of having the worst record in Major League Baseball their last two National League seasons, losing 106 games in 2011 and 107 contests in 2012. But baseball in Houston seemed much more promising in 1962. Responding to Congressional antimonopoly concerns and efforts by Branch Rickey and others to form a third major league, Major League Baseball placed expansion National League franchises in Houston and New York City. The two new franchises, however, failed to receive equal attention from the nation's media. Houston, fielding a competent expansion entry, was overlooked by sportswriters and fans in favor of a New York Mets team which established modern records for futility. Of course, there were reasons for the national attention to focus on the New York Mets. They resided in the nation's media center and were able to attract chroniclers such as Jimmy Breslin. The Mets were also represented by General Manager George Weiss and Manager Casey Stengel, who recalled the glory days of the New York Yankees in the 1950s. Having to compete with the popular Yankees for the New York market, Weiss decided that the Mets would draft well-established veterans to fill the expansion roster. Players such as Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer, Gus Bell, Charlie Neal, and Richie Ashburn adorned the roster, providing the Mets with older hands who were household names to baseball fans in New York and throughout the country. While the team was old and short on pitching, Stengel remained quotable, and the nation became infatuated with such loveable losers as former Yankee Marvelous Mary Throneberry. Indeed, the Mets proved to be so bad that they did restore some of the interest in baseball which many in the game feared was being lost to professional football. Meanwhile, ignored in the national hoopla over Stengel and the Mets, a solid first-year expansion franchise was taking shape in Houston. Appealing to the frontier images still associated with Texas and its largest city, the initial name for the Houston team was the Colt .455, often shortened to Colts, a symbol of the gun which was considered to have played a leading role in the winning of the West. In 1961, the Houston electorate approved $22 million in general obligation bonds for the Harris County domed stadium. However, the Astrodome, as the stadium was eventually called, was not ready for the inaugural 1962 campaign. The Colt .45s would have to compete against the Mets without the publicity of the world's first indoor baseball park. Instead, the Colt .45s played in a temporary structure, Colt Stadium, which had a seating capacity of thirty-two thousand and was located on the same lot as the projected domed stadium. Unlike the Mets who emphasized name players in the draft, Houston selected younger athletes, many of them out of the talented Los Angeles Dodger system. …