The Pecan Park Eagle

Opening Day
Colt Stadium
Houston, Texas
Chicago @ Houston (NL)
April 10, 1962

For the first time in memory, the 2018 MLB season begins in March. The Astros will be on the road for the March part, playing their very first four games at Texas from March 29, 30, 31, and April 1, Thursday through Sunday, before returning here for the 57th home opener in Houston MLB history at 6:30 PM on Monday, April 2, 2018 at Minute Maid Park against the visiting Baltimore Orioles, who will also remain in town for two more games on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings each.

For what now is becoming a handful of us, it seems like yesterday that the then so-identified Houston Colt. 45s were getting ready to play their very first MLB Opening Day Game at the short-lived makeshift place we called Colt Stadium at the corner of OST and Fannin on April 10, 1962 against the Chicago Cubs.

Times have changed.

From We Can’t Make It to Come and Take It

On Opening Day 1962, Houston and the New York Mets began the NL season as talent-patched-together expansion teams, looking up at the rest of the baseball world. In 2018, the AL and World Series Championship Astros begin the year looking out at baseball as their contestable kingdom.

In 1962, Houston survived as the playful guys who gladly accepted the few wins they cobbled. In 2018, the smiling Astros look out at the baseball world and say, “if you want what we have, you are going to have to take it away from us.”

For Astro fans, it’s enough to make the long challenging wait all the more worthwhile.

Even Brief Delusions Bloomed on April 10, 1962.

Hope you enjoy this little story of the 1962 Opening Day on Tuesday, April 10, 1962 that Associated Press did for fans at The Victoria Advocate in a next day publication of April 11th. And thank you again too, Darrell Pittman, for sending it along and spreading that early tweak of joy with the rest of us.

As per usual: “Go Astros!”

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