The Pecan Park Eagle

4/10/1965: Jim Beauchamp was the first Astros batter to light up the famous scoreboard in a day game with the Baltimore Orioles when his third inning home run contributed mightily to the club’s 11-8 second win of any kind in the Astrodome.

Although his first Astros home run into the left field pavilion seats in the second game ever played in the Dome didn’t count in the long run because of its exhibition game status, it was still a landmark first time that the famous new all Texas cowboys and bulls scoreboard got lit up by a home club long ball in the great new land of inner playing space.

The world didn’t have to wait long for an official first indoor home run. As with Mantle before him, however, it simply wasn’t going to spring from the bat of an Astros slugger. The first official game home run in the Astrodome came early in the first contest of the season, in a battle  played out on 4/12/1965 between the visiting Philadelphia Phillies and the home team Houston Astros. As in the first exhibition game, it was again a member of the opposition that cracked the first long ball indoors when Phillies first baseman Dick Allen banged out a two run homer in the third inning off Bob Bruce that stood up as the 2-0 final score of the very first Astrodome Opening Day contest.

Astrodome Landmarks from 4/12/1965:

First Astros Loss – 4/12/1965, 0-2.

First Win – Philadelphia Phillies

First Losing Pitcher – Bob Bruce (Astros)

First Astros Reliever – Hal Woodeshick

First Winning Pitcher – Chris Short (Phillies)

First Official Domer Homer – Dick Allen (Phillies)

First Run – Ruben Amaro (Phillies)

First Error – Dick Allen (Phillies)

First Astros Double – Joe Morgan

First Astros Multiple Hit Game – Joe Morgan (2 for 3)

After the 4/12/1965 Dome opener, the Astros went on an eight-game road trip that kept them out-of-town until 4//23/1965 when they returned to the Astrodome to play a three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Astros took the first series game, 4-3, establishing these additional Astrodome firsts:

First Astros Win – 4/23/1965, 4-3.

First Losing Team Foe – Pittsburgh Pirates

First Astros Winning Pitcher and Win in Relief – Dave Giusti

First Opponent Losing Pitcher – Al McBean (Pirates)

First Astros Batter Hit by Pitcher – Ron Brand by Al McBean

First Astros Intentional Walk – to Al Spangler by Al McBean

The next day, 4/24/1965, the Astros finally added the big offensive first:

First Astros Home Run – Bob Aspromonte

First Astros Home Run with at least One Runner on Base – Jimmy Wynn

That’s it for now. If you have any firsts facing you this weekend, may they all be pleasant ones.

* Thanks to Baseball Almanac and Baseball Reference for their usual roles in making basic historical data research a thousand times easier than it was in the old pre-Internet days. If we really wanted to cover all of the baseball firsts associated with the opening of the Astrodome, we could be at the research side of things 12 hours a day for the next six months and still be scraping the surface of new material that had not occurred to us previously.

Tags: Astrodome Firsts

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