Saying Farewell to Their Ballparks

Larry Dierker was an impressionable young pitcher for the Houston Astros when he stepped into the Astrodome for the first indoor baseball game on April 9, 1965.

The 18-year-old was awestruck.

“We first walked into the Dome at night and they had it all lit up,” said Dierker, now the Astros manager. “I felt like I had walked into a huge flying saucer ... like walking into another century.”

Now the Astros really are walking into another century. Their last regular season game at the ballpark is Oct. 3, though Houston is likely to make the playoffs.

Even if it plays host to its first World Series, the final out is no more than weeks away.

In the 2000 season, the Astros will move downtown to Enron Field, one of the next generation of stadiums with futuristic qualities of its own, especially the luxury boxes needed to remain financially competitive these days.

The stadium that bills itself the “Eighth Wonder of the World” will continue to hold other events, mainly Houston’s world-famous rodeo.

But, clearly, the glory days are gone.

“The Dome led the way for a whole generation of copycats, a generation of multipurpose stadiums,” said Fred Hofheinz, son of Dome pioneer Roy Hofheinz. “Now they’re going back in the other direction.”

In fact, some of the very innovations the Astrodome brought about--a permanent roof, artificial turf and multi-use versatility--are now being rejected in favor old-fashioned ballparks.

So the stadium built for $31.6 million is being replaced by a $250 million park with a retractable roof and natural grass.

Enron Field will shed the multipurpose tag and feature baseball only. Its turn-of-the-century look mimics several other stadiums built this decade.

Texas-style flamboyance and size were goals of the Harris County Domed Stadium from the start.

On Jan. 3, 1962, county and team officials fired Colt .45-caliber pistols owned by famous Texas lawmen into the earth to signify ground breaking for the structure that would change sports stadium construction forever.

Three years later, the city stood proudly and marveled at the finished product. President Lyndon B. Johnson and family were on hand for the liftoff, and Gov. John Connally threw out the first ball.

The Astrodome was the world’s largest air-conditioned room, requiring special ducts to keep it cool. An 18-story building could fit below its 202-foot-high roof.

And there were other superlatives: 30,000 parking spaces, the largest of any stadium; the first scoreboard more than 400 feet long; the first stadium with its own weather station on top; the world’s longest dugout at 120 feet; the first grass grown indoors.

“We wanted to do all kinds of things that were novel,” said Astros president Tal Smith, project manager for the stadium’s construction. “Everybody likes to sit behind the dugouts, so we had the longest dugouts in baseball.”

Hofheinz, the flamboyant former mayor and county judge recruited to push the project to fans and the National League, wanted the team indoors to get away from searing Texas heat and dive-bombing mosquitoes. The promise of a domed palace helped Houston win an expansion team.

The park opened for an exhibition game between the New York Yankees and the Astros. Mickey Mantle hit the first homer, but Houston won 2-1 in 12 innings.

“It was the culmination of a beautiful dream,” Smith said. “I just stood there for quite some time. It was beautiful, all dressed up and unspoiled in all its glory.”

The centerpiece was the $2 million scoreboard, featuring light bulbs that went into a frenzy after homers and victories. There were snorting bulls with Texas and U.S. flags on their horns and a roper on horseback trying to lasso a calf.

“Judge Hofheinz had a flair for creating the whole dome concept,” Smith said. “He kept turning down different companies’ ideas for the scoreboard. He’d say it wasn’t jazzy enough or it was nice but nothing special.”

Hofheinz even had an apartment built inside the Dome and lived there.

But things weren’t perfect.

The roof caused such a glare that players could not see fly balls during the day. All 4,596 Lucite roof panels were painted, but that blocked the sunlight and killed the grass.

So Hofheinz told Smith to find a solution.

Smith learned of research on artificial playing surfaces being done at a Rhode Island private school. He and architect Jim Mueller went to investigate, and even fielded ground balls.

On April 18, 1966, AstroTurf debuted with Don Sutton getting the first of his 324 career victories, pitching Los Angeles to a 6-3 win over the Astros and Robin Roberts.

Don Wilson pitched the first of the stadium’s six no-hitters--all by Astros--on June 18, 1967. He beat Atlanta 2-0 and struck out 15, including Hank Aaron to end it.

Nolan Ryan pitched his record-setting fifth no-hitter Sept. 26, 1981, to beat Los Angeles 2-0.

On Sept. 25, 1986, a few months after the Dome held its second All-Star game, Cy Young winner Mike Scott no-hit San Francisco to clinch the NL West.

Houston played memorable NL championship series in 1980 and 1986, but dropped both.

The Astrodome lost some of its lore in September 1988 when the scoreboard was torn out to make room for 10,000 more seats demanded by the NFL’s Houston Oilers.

“For me, the love affair with the Astrodome ended when they took down the scoreboard,” Dierker said. “From then on, it was just waiting until we could get a new stadium.”