Closet Discoveries

 I've been on a cleaning/reorganizing/purging binge lately and I attacked my hobby closet earlier this week. I opened four boxes from the upper shelves and had a lot of fun. Absolutely the best thing in any of my boxes was this Hank Aaron foldout I got the night he hit homer #712 in the Astrodome in September of 1973.

It opened up to a full four page home run log. There were spaces to fill in  homers 711 thru 715.

 

I filled in the slots (sorta) beginning with the dinger off Dave Roberts we witnessed that night. Jerry Ruess is the missing victim of #713. Jack Billinghan served up #714 and, of course, #715 was smacked off Al Downing. You can see that I underlined Jack Billingham in the listings. I believe I'd noticed his name a few times and was counting them up. Without Baseball Reference in those days we were on our own. BTW...Billingham gave up five Aaron homers thru the years, not early the top mark. Here are Hank's favorite pitchers:

Don Drysdale 17 homers
Claude Osteen 14
Bob Friend 12
Larry Jackson 10
Don Cardwell 10
Roger Craig 10

There was also a career summary that covered a couple of pages and a statistical summary of his career to that point.

I had no idea that this thing had survuved in my storage boxes. I was happy to see it. I still don't have the little paper certificate we received but finding this was a kick.

This piece is just the tip of the iceberg of what I dug out of these boxes and is currently stacked in my home office/hobby room. I've been busy scanning some really off-the-wall items which willkeep me posting for a while.

Astrodome Postcards

I'm not sure where these postcards came from but they bring back some fond memories of great events. The top one was taken during the first game played there in April 1965. The person who wrote the blurb on the back was either not using tier glasses or looking at a different photo. Check it out:

First of all, it seems odd to mention the time the game started at all. Clock clearly shows 7:46

This sure looks like the lineup card/ground rules meeting.

 But whatever. It's a neat card.

This one is closer to my heart. It from the October, 1970 Houston Cougar football game versus Alabama. The Coogs lost with me somewhere over in the stands on the left, the student section. But the Coogs went on to an 8-3 record and a Top Twenty finish. A couple of years later I would watch games from the press level. That was fun. But the view you see right here is the one I had for years as a young alum. This was my group's favorite spot. It gave us a perfect view of Coach Bill Yeoman's veer offense.  It was up here where I also watched the basketball Game of The Century. This one brings back some great memories.

Fernandomania!

My wife was going through some shoe boxes of mementos that she came across one evening last week and found (among some other interesting things) this Fernando Valenzuela button. In 1981 Fernando arrived with a splash after being named the Dodgers' Opening Day starter as a replacement for the injured Jerry Reuss. Most everyone knows how his career blazed across the baseball universe after that. 

Even my Mexican American soon-to-be father-in-law was caught up in Fernandomania. He'd lived his whole life here in Texas but had never been to a baseball game (or pro sports event for that matter) until we took him to see Fernando pitch in the Astrodome late in the 1981 season. 

Don Sutton out pitched Fernando that night and the Astros won but that didn't dampen the festive mood or ruin our milestone family adventure. I think we bought him that button in the Astrodome gift shop during the game. Back then the Dome and every other park I visited carried caps and other items from every team in the majors so finding a button of a member of the Astros' division rival probably didn't surprise me. 

I hadn't thought about that night in a long time. I saw my father-in-law last week and I meant to ask him if he remembers going to that game. He's 91 now but still sharp as can be so I'm betting he does. I remember sitting that night down the left field line near the foul pole and how impressed he was with seeing the inside of that impressive building he'd seen from the street many times. 

I believe the last time I saw Valenzuela pitch in person was in the 1986 All Star game when he struck out five straight AL hitters (Don Mattingly, Cal Ripken, Jr., Jesse Barfield, Lou Whitaker and Teddy Higuera) to tie Carl Hubbell's record set in the 30s.  

Fernando had some cool cards in his day but I really like this Stadium Club from a year or so back. Greatness.

Dome Sweet Dome

I saw more games in the Dome than in any other stadium and I had a love/hate relationship with the place. When it was full and the crowd was into the game it was really a rocking atmosphere. But no place I've been to could be as dead as the Dome during a meaningless, sparsely attended game.

A week ago I attended my first meeting of the Houston Chapter of SABR. I've been a member for a few years but never bothered to go to the monthly gatherings. The chapter is named for Larry Dierker and lo and behold he attended this meeting as a guest and I was seated right there with him. He was very cordial. He signed some items that people brought (I hadn't considered doing that for some reason) and participated in the discussions.

One of the items that was passed around at the meeting was the book shown at the top. I had a copy stored away and when I saw the one last week I was reminded of how cool it is. Nearly three hundred pages long it chronicles the short history of the Houston Colts/Astros, the building of the Dome and much, much more.

There is an Astros 'yearbook' incorporated into the thing as well as sections covering the MLB teams, all the NFL teams including a whole Oilers section. This despite the fact that the Oilers were still years away from moving into the Dome. Also in the book are pages covering a wide range of tenants the Dome was hosting including the Billy Graham Crusade, University of Houston football and the Houston rodeo.

It's really a remarkable volume and I wish I could do it justice with scans of more of it but I hate taking a chance of breaking the spine. I'll settle for pics of just a few pages.

I love this feature on the various colors of the seating levels.

I should have fixed this photo but with this and the next photo you get an idea of what the Astros' section looked like.

American League teams got one page each. The NL teams got a two page spread. There is a large baseball records section in there, too.

George Blanda and the Oilers! One of the speakers at the meeting reprised a locally famous quote from Oilers' owner Bud Adams: "The Astrodome may be the 8th Wonder of the World but the ninth wonder is the rent!". It took Roy Hofheinz and Bud Adams until 1968 to agree on a deal to get pro football into the Dome.

Meanwhile the U of H was playing football there. The Cougars get a nice section in the book, nearly a dozen pages. Our big star, Warren McVea is featured.

In the photo below you can see the late Phil Hoffman in the upper right. He was UH President in my first go round as a Coog. I have a funny story that involves him, me and some drunk friends of mine, an open dorm window and a water hose hooked up to a shower. I'll need to check to see if the statue of limitations is up before I get into it though.

And finally here's a page with a nice full color picture of some of the Astros' staff. I'm glad they got rid of those 'H' caps once the season started.

This post just doesn't do the book justice in any way. What a deal it was for just a dollar in 1965. I didn't pay much more than that many years later. You can find them for $10 or less pretty easily. Waaaaaay more entertaining than a Topps Now card at the same price.

Astrodome Replica

I had many, many great times in Houston's Astrodome. I saw more baseball there than I could possibly recall, lots of Houston Oiler and Houston Cougar football (I sold beer at Oiler games!), and some basketball including Final Four contests, an NBA versus ABA All Star Game and of course, the Game of the Century between UH and UCLA.

I saw concerts, rodeos, boxing, Oiler Pep rallies, movie shoots (a Bad News Bears extra) and all kinds of other events.

Last Saturday the Astros gave away mini-Astrodome replicas to fans entering Minute Maid Park for the game versus the Angels. I was out of town but my son took his fiance and I was the lucky recipient of one of the Domes.

The 'Dome" is pretty detailed as you can see. The 'roof' lifts off to reveal the seating and playing field. They even included the gigantic a/c cooling tower which is just to the right of the entrance ramps behind center field.

We rarely get to games early enough to pick these giveaway items up. They go fast thanks to large family groups that buy the cheapest tickets and grab them and then don't stay for the game. Invariably I'll see a 'family' of 8 or 10, all carrying bobblehead boxes, heading away from the ballpark as we arrive to park for the game. And yes, just as I figured, I'm seeing these things on eBay at prices from $50 to $75. That's just the way the world turns now I suppose.

Astrodome Sportscaster Card from the late 1970s

The Sportscaster Card set is a monstrously huge set of oversized cards that were sold via subscription in the late 1970s. They covered just about every possible aspect of sports from athletes to coaches to venues and equipment. The cards were marketed in the U.S., Europe and Japan and I believe they were mostly printed in Italy. There are several sites dedicated to them and this one has a database listing all of them.

I recently picked this one up online along with three other 'non-sports' oversized cards via an eBay dealer. The other three are from similar sets and are European in origin. I'll get to them soon.

The Astrodome is currently the subject of much debate in the Houston area these days. The place is slowly decaying as it sits unoccupied next to Reliant Stadium and I've seen estimates for it's yearly 'upkeep' costs as high as two million dollars a year. The basic argument is whether to bring it down or 'repurpose' it.

I sure have great memories of the place. I sold beer there for awhile at Oiler games. I had my first date with my wife there at a Houston Cougar football game. I can't list every great event I've seen in it but they include some thrilling Astros playoff games, and in particular the Game of the Century between Houston and UCLA in January of 1968.

I picked this card up simply because it shows the exact view I had from my UH football seats as well as the view I would have had if I could have seen anything from my beer kiosk on the mezzanine level.

I also found a version of the card done in French being sold on eBay.

1969 Topps #572 Giants Heroes

Two great players. One cool card. 

I saw Juan Marichal go 13 plus innings against the Mets in 1969 and lose on a Tommy Agee homer in the 14th. That wasn't the last time Agee pissed me off in 1969. I vaguely recall seeing Marichal pitch in Houston but I don't remember anything about what he did.

I do remember that Willie McCovey hit a whistling foul that banged off the armrest of the seat in front of me one night in the Astrodome. That thing was spinning and buzzing as it ricocheted past my ear. Scared the crap out of me. That was the closest I ever came to getting a ball at a game (or getting killed at a game) until earlier this season when my wife was hit with a foul at an Astros-Cardinals game.