Art Howe has been memorialized in film as the Oakland A’s manager in the movie Moneyball. But Howe’s most notable years as a player and his first gig as a manager were in Houston. The 1989 Houston Astros season was Howe’s first go-around as a skipper and his team played competitive baseball, contending into September. […]
The Houston Astros are set to make their first appearance in the American League Championship Series on Friday night against the New York Yankees. If the franchise’s history in the National League is any indication, there are some thrills in store. Over the course of their 50-year run as an NL team (1962-2012), the Astros […]
The New York Mets came into the 1986 NLCS as a 108-win team and the clear favorite to win the World Series. The Houston Astros were a turnaround story under rookie manager Hal Lanier. It turned into an incredibly tense, taut National League Championship Series that had the Mets giving thanks for their survival. GREAT […]
After making the postseason in 1980 and 1981, the Astros had slipped into mediocrity. Over the next four years they ranged between 77-85 and 85-77, the very definition of being predictably average. The 1986 Houston Astros had a new manager in Hal Lanier and a new result as they won the NL West. GREAT 1980s […]
Major league baseball came to the city of Houston in 1962 and for the ensuing seventeen years it was mostly subpar. The franchise only had two winning seasons, never won more than 84 games and never seriously contended. The 1979 Houston Astros changed all that, leading the old NL West for much of the year, […]
The 1981 Houston Astros were coming off a season in which the franchise won their first division title and then played one of the great NLCS battles of all time before losing to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Astros got great pitching to make it back to the postseason in 1981, with no small help from a well-timed players’ strike and resulting alteration of the playoff system.
1981 was the foreshadowing of a new era in baseball, with the introduction of the Division Series. The circumstances weren’t ideal—a players’ strike from mid-June to mid-August…The 1981 NLDS gave baseball good reasons to like the idea, with both series going the full five games.
Bill Virdon took over as manager late in 1975, got them to the .500 level soon after and in 1979, they chased the Cincinnati Reds to the final weekend of the season. The 1980 Houston Astros took the next step and won the old NL West—but not before giving the fan base collective heart failure before it was over.
The Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals had played a brilliant National League Championship Series in 2004, with the Cardinals coming out on top in seven games. It was so good that it was worth a sequel—and in this case, the sequel really was as good as the original.