Mostly forgotten today, at the beginning of the 1960s plans were in the works for a 3rd major league - the Continental League.  Fronted by the one and only Branch Rickey, its purpose at least in part was to return a second major league club to NYC to claim a share of that market's riches, which had been wholly the domain of the Yankees since the Giants and Dodgers left for the west coast in 1958.   One city in the running for a franchise in the new league was Houston, the backers of which had previously tried to lure the Cardinals, A's and Indians to Texas.  As part of the backroom dealings which led to the demise of plans for the Continental League, the National League assured both Houston and New York of admission as expansion teams in 1962. 

The Houston team was initially called the Colt .45s in an effort to motivate a marketing deal with the Colt firearms company.  The name was chosen by a single member of the ownership group and never sat well with the others.  In 1965, the club abandoned ramshackle Colt Stadium for the brand new Harris County Domed Stadium.  It was Quickly re-christened the Astrodome to leverage the cache of current popular interest in the space program, a nearby focus of which was NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center).  The move was used as an occasion to rename the team the Astros.  The Astrodome was the first enclosed stadium of its kind in the world.  At first, the dome consisted of over 4,500 clear plastic "windows" which allowed in sunlight and enabled the use of real turf.  Once it became clear that this concentrated sunlight interfered with play, the windows were painted over, necessitating the creation of artificial turf which was, of course, quickly named Astroturf.  

For the first 20 or so years of their existence the Astros showed brief hints of competitiveness which never panned out - young stars either went elsewhere (Joe Morgan), never lived up to potential (Cesar Cedeno) or suffered tragedy (Don Wilson).   A career-ending stroke suffered by dominant hurler J.R. Richard in 1980 was a huge blow, but the team still won their first division title that year, only to lose to the Phillies in the most exciting NLCS under the best-of-5 format (4 extra inning games, including game 5).  Another division title followed in '86, and the team enjoyed an extended period of high-performance from the mid-90s to the mid-00s, to include their first World Series appearance in 2005, led by the so-called "Killer B's": Craig Biggio, Lance Berkman and Jeff Bagwell.  Coincident with an ownership change, the team shifted to the American League for 2013 to enable daily inter-league play.  In the mid '10s, the team was accused of intentionally underperforming ("tanking") in an effort to acquire and solidify a corps of young talent.  True or not, the outcome was favorable to the team as evidenced by a period of dominance beginning with their first World Series title in 2017.  Following 2019, they became embroiled in controversy over their illegal use of technology to steal opponents' signs, which for many called into question the legitimacy of their recent success and which caused many others to simply say "meh".   

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The main purpose of this page is to illustrate those players, managers and coaches who have been the most prominent in the franchise's history.  Links below will take you to galleries highlighting each, by position.  Generally, an individual is included if he spent at least 2 full seasons (consecutive or cumulative) as a starter, relief pitcher, closer or manager. For coaches, I've generally used 5 years of service as the bar.  None of this is scientific, though, so there are exceptions.  Where possible and practical, I used pictures of actual baseball cards because that it is the medium through which I, and I suppose many others, first discovered the game. Where necessary, I designed my own images.  Images of actual baseball cards were obtained at the Card Cyber Museum, and for my own designs I used photos found at host of different sites, but none moreso than the wonderful forum at Out of the Park Developments.  

I claim no rights to, or ownership of, any of the photographic images I've used on these pages.   You are welcome to use them yourself.  All I ask is that that if you use any of my personal creations, you give credit to this site.