Baseball Remembers: Larry Dierker

In 1964, the Houston Colt .45’s shouldn’t have been in a hurry.

It was only their third year in the big leagues, having entered as an expansion franchise in 1962. They were remarkably consistent in those first three seasons, losing 96 games in each of them. As that September began, the team was a Mets away from being in last place in the standings, and were dead last in attendance at less than 9,000 fans per game. It was a pretty typical showing for an expansion team.

Even so, they had no reason to think they needed some sort of boost in their local visibility. That was coming next season, in 1965, when the state-of-the-art Astrodome would open its doors and the team would re-brand with the space-age nickname Astros. That alone would shoot their attendance to the second-most in the league behind only the Dodgers. It certainly wasn’t the team’s performance that brought out the fans in ‘65; they set a new franchise record by losing 97 games instead of 96.

So the 1964 team should have been simply biding their time until the new building opened, the new name could generate some buzz, and the revenue that came with greater ticket sales and interest would allow them to spend more on players. The 1964 plan should have been to build up the farm system, particularly at the lower levels. Their top two farms teams were actually pretty good, each well above .500. They had Rusty Staub, Dave Giusti, and Joe Hoerner playing in Triple-A Oklahoma City, and future Hall of Famer Joe Morgan was at Double-A San Antonio. There was talent that would be coming soon.