THE SOUTH.
Travel Guide / Handbook, Souvenir.
The famous evangelist Billy Graham is said to have called the Astrodome the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” and for when it went up in the mid-1960s the claim sticks. Nowadays, massive indoor sports complexes are the norm, but the Astrodome was an American original, the first climate-controlled “clear-span” structure of its kind. And it was impressive, seating 45,000 for baseball, 52,000 for football, and more for conventions and boxing matches. Playing baseball through the hot humid Houston summer could not have been an enjoyable experience for the players of the original Houston Colt .45s, “malarial” a word that comes to mind given the city’s swampy sub-tropical surroundings. But the team that would become the Astros (President Lyndon B. Johnson having located America’s new space command center in Houston, hence the “Space City” theme) would be rid of such discomfort starting with the 1965 season; the “world’s first indoor baseball game” played on April 9, 1965. Itself built on a drained swamp but a half dozen miles south of Houston’s downtown, the Astrodome anchored a sprawling complex that included an amusement park: Astroworld, a massive 500,000 sq ft convention center: Astrohall, and a suite of brand new hotels to host the 7.5 million guests that would visit this “Astrodomain” annually. “Superlatives abound” in this fun 1972 throwback tourist guide, a time when engineering feats were still celebrated in the triumphant spirit of America’s 20th century of progress, if following a routine advertising hype common to all eras. Sports in the Astrodome is front-and-center, and not just baseball and football, but basketball, boxing, rodeos, motor sports, soccer, track and field events, even polo. Of course, the Astrodome also gave us “astroturf,” the guide expounding fun facts about then revolutionary, if now reviled, artificial grass. (7,939 feet of zippers required!) A great comparison between it and the “Rome Collossuem”, a visual documentary of the dome’s construction and what was then the largest scoreboard in the world, alongside smaller sections on “World” and “Hall” round out the 60+ pages of the guide. For 50+ years of age it is still in great shape, just a few nicks and tears on its paperback cover, the pages themselves a mix of color and black-and-white printed on thick paper. This is a great gift for the “futuristic space-age Texan,” if of a vintage equal to the recent past.
Condition: Used Very Good.
Travel / Touring.
Houston Sports Association, Inc., 1972.
Softcover Guide, 62 pgs, 8.5 x 11” / 10 oz
