That Time When a Game at The Astrodome Was Rained Out

The Astrodome was built to avoid weather issues. How could a ballgame get called on account of rain?

by Rich Watson

The Astros were born in 1962 as the Colt .45s, and the city of Houston was glad to have them. Watching games at Colt Stadium, though, was like sitting in a sauna. During the heart of the summer, game-time temperatures in the upper nineties were not unusual.

When co-owner Roy Hofheinz visited the Roman Colosseum, he learned it used to have an awning, called a velarium, to shield the audience from the sun. As a result, he financed and developed the creation of the Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium in the world. 

Prior to Opening Day 1965, the legendary Satchel Paige test-pitched within the dome’s $4.5 million dollar air-conditioning system. He declared it a “pitcher’s paradise.” 

The Colt .45s became the Astros. The dome opened in April. Soon it was also home to the NFL Oilers and many pro and college teams.

Games and other events could be watched at a comfortable seventy-three degrees. Mother Nature, it seemed, had been conquered—until a bizarre incident during the Bicentennial year of 1976.

“The eighth wonder of the world”

During the 1965 season, the Astros played on natural grass under the dome’s glass-covered roof. The roof, however, caused a glare that made fly balls tough to track. Painting the glass blocked the sunlight and killed the grass.

The next year, the Astros switched to a surface originally called ChemGrass, invented by the agribusiness Monsanto for urban playgrounds. It became known as “AstroTurf.” 

Soon, a number of new stadiums used Astroturf, for baseball, football, soccer, and more. And ten thousand pulled hamstrings cried out in protest.)

The Astrodome has had many opportunities to live up to its reputation as “the eighth wonder of the world”—for sporting events and otherwise: 

• Mickey Mantle hit the first Astrodome homer, in an Astros-Yankees exhibition game. 
• The Oilers moved in during 1968. 
• Mets announcer Lindsay Nelson once broadcast a game from the roof. 
• Speaking of the roof, there was the incident with the fan known as Astroman. 
• The University of Houston-UCLA college basketball game, billed as “the game of the century,” was in the Astrodome. 
• The “battle of the sexes” between tennis stars Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs was there as well. 
• And who could forget director Robert Altman’s use of the dome in his film Brewster McCloud?

But how did rain affect an Astros game?

Pouring rain

It was June 15, 1976. The fourth-place Astros were scheduled for a game against Pittsburgh. Rookie Gil Rondon would’ve started against the Pirates’ Doc Medich.

Outside the dome that day, Houston suffered a terrible downpour. The streets were flooded. Neither fans nor stadium workers could reach the Astrodome. The downtown Houston area received almost seven and a half inches of rain.

The players were present at the stadium before the worst of the storm, but not the umpires. After trying and failing to reach the dome by car, they remained at their hotel. By five PM, playing would not have been worth the effort.

With the rain still coming down, Astros general manager Tal Smith made the call: the game was canceled. An Astros spokesman referred to it as a “rain-in.” 

According to the book Stars and Strikes by Dan Epstein, an account of the baseball season during the Bicentennial, Smith said it wasn’t a hard decision to make:

“We could have played the game… but if we had announced it was on, we would have been inviting misfortune. Many would have tried to make it and would have become stranded. We just felt it was best to postpone it.”

 

Waiting out the storm

About twenty fans did make it to the Astrodome. The concession staff served them a buffet dinner, along with the players and coaches of both teams, still in their uniforms, and dome staff. They all ate on the field, on tables behind second base.

Afterwards, some of the Astros went to the roof and crawled along the catwalks.

Getting home

The SABR website describes the players leaving the Astrodome once the waters receded and it was safe to return to hotels and residences:

Doc Medich’s trip home began around 8:00 PM. “I guess the rain slacked off enough for us to get a bus back to the hotel. The streets were still flooded and the bus had to go very slow through the streets.” [Astros manager] Bill Verdon was able to get home in his car, but his wife, Shirley, had to abandon hers on a bridge near the ballpark. As the evening grew later, the danger decreased. [Larry] Dierker recalled leaving at around 10:00, and Roger Metzger, around midnight. Rob Andrews and Mike Cosgrove chose to ride home in the morning, after spending the night in the Astrodome in a luxury suite sleeping while the waters subsided.

The Astrodome today

The Astros moved to the stadium now known as Minute Maid Park in 2000, where they won their one and only World Series in 2017–on natural grass. (The Oilers had left the Astrodome, and Houston, in 1996.) NRG Stadium, a facility with a retractable roof, was built next door in 2002 for Houston’s newest NFL team, the Texans.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans to the point where evacuees sought shelter within the Astrodome.

Code violations led to the dome’s closure in 2008. Ever since, a number of proposals for its renovation and reopening have floated, including plans to host the Summer Olympics, to convert the dome into a hotel or a movie studio or city park, and others.

Mostly the people of Houston want it to become a community space. A plan of some sort is expected to take shape later this year, so perhaps this historic facility will come alive again in the future.

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I’ve written another piece for the film noir magazine The Dark Pages. The theme for the November/December “giant” issue is “California noir.” My article is about the movie Woman On the Run. You can order your copy here.

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Do you remember the “rain-in” at the Astrodome?