How Houston Baseball Changed New Orleans
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One rule I follow when watching sports is never to shoot for teams in Atlanta or Houston. Not that there is anything wrong with these cities, but fan support is usually based on irrational geographic biases. More often than not, we cry for the teams where we come from. As a New Orleans chauvinist, I viewed Atlanta and Houston as rivals for mythical geographic supremacy. It hurts that two southern towns close to New Orleans were twinned in this year’s World Series, when New Orleans doesn’t even have a baseball team.
Nonetheless, this year’s series made me think nicer thoughts about one of those cities, Houston, and its impact on New Orleans.
In 1960, Houston got a major league franchise. Before that, major league sports had never been present in the Deep South, mainly due to segregation laws. In addition, cities in the east and center-west that had teams were closer to each other. This was important in the days when most travel was done by train.
Civil rights and the jet plane opened up new possibilities. (The Braves franchise moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966.). Houston at the time was one of the country’s booming cities. Establishing a team there would open up a new market across Texas and the southern Gulf. With the completion of Interstate-10, Louisiana residents could have a faster commute to catch major league baseball.
One downside to Houston was that it was hot – a hellish place to sit in a booth during the summer to watch a baseball game. Fortunately, there were three factors that the Houston promoters had to their advantage: money, land, and hutzpah.
We will build an air-conditioned stadium with a dome on top, they said. A dome-shaped stadium? No one had ever heard of such a thing.
There would be challenges. One was that the dome itself was originally intended to be clear, but when some players went to the field to practice catching flyballs, they couldn’t see the oncoming sphere due to glare. It was decided that the roof should be darkened so as not to let in so much sunlight. But that created another problem. Without light, the grass of the field would die. The spirits started to click. An artificial surface has been created. It was known as AstroTurf.
Originally, the baseball team was called the Colts ’45 and played in a temporary stadium while the dome was being built nearby. By the time the dome was completed in 1965, the team’s name, in honor of Houston’s emerging role as a space center, had changed to Astros. By shedding the name Colt 45, Houston was no longer a city of the Wild West but a city of the space age. There was even a one-of-a-kind stadium now known as the Astrodome.
Meanwhile, New Orleans had applied for an NFL franchise. This city didn’t have as much land and money as Houston, but it also had hutzpah, and its boosters said give us a franchise and we’ll build a bigger and better dome than Houston.
Building on that promise and backed by political influence in Washington, New Orleans secured an NFL franchise in 1966. The team played at Tulane Stadium for eight years until a dome well above the ground. ‘Astrodome takes its place in the horizon. The New Orleans Dome was built to last and could serve as a multi-purpose facility. Over the years, many modifications have been made to the building; including more suites and a better moon view. Other cities – including Minneapolis, Seattle, and Indianapolis – would also build domes, but they were built cheaply and didn’t last.
Even the Astrodome did not have lasting power. In 1999, the Astros moved to a new stadium, originally named Enron Field (Oops!), Which became Minute Maid Park in 2002.
Nowadays, the trend in stadiums is taking the idea of ââan enclosed dome a little further towards retractable roofs that can be opened and closed depending on the weather, including the Houston stadium.
Meanwhile, the Superdome takes its place as the best and longest surviving domes, besides having been the bait to get the Saints franchise. Before the Saints, New Orleans was a beloved, yet quaint city, and for some, a rather backward southern city. The Saints literally put the city in the big leagues. New Orleans gained prestige and proved to be a formidable commercial player thanks to the dome.
And it all started with the dream of a baseball team in Houston. After awarding an NFL franchise to New Orleans in 1966, Commissioner Pete Rozelle announced his choice as to who owns the franchise. It was an important choice because the person would form the franchise; infuse a lot of money and even select the name and colors of the team. He would set the course for the franchise for the future. His name was John Mecom, a descendant of a family involved in oil, gas and real estate. Oh, and he was from Houston.
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