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Astros Uniform History


JayJaxon

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For a couple of years now I have been gathering research for a baseball uniform project. The idea is to write a book like the one Marc Okkonen wrote in the early 90's. When I was getting this thing off the ground I was in constant contact with Mr. Okkonen to assure the template would be good enough or I was talking to the right people when trying to obtain information. In my opinion he did a wonderful job with his book but he won't be writing another. So with his blessing I got started. I talked to everyone from Bill Henderson (Author of Game Worn Jerseys of the Double-knit era) to Paul Lukas (Uni Watch) to Tom Shieber (curator of the Baseball Hall of Fame)

Every one of them thought this was a great idea and so I set out to get some work done. Trying to decide on a template is one of the hardest things in this process. It is not perfect by any means but it does exactly what it needs to do which is show off the uniform. Just like Okkonen's template I decided not to have a face or show the back of the uniform. It is possible that I will show back numbers in a separate section but for now they will not be there.

I'm showing you because I need to make sure I fix as many mistakes as I can. I am pretty much doing the whole thing by myself with a little help from SABR members and other outside elements. But for the most part it's just me gathering the info and placing it on the template. Mistakes are gonna happen and I have caught several in the process of doing this. But now it is your turn to point out mistakes. If you do find something wrong or you want to point out a patch or armband that they wore while sporting that particular uniform, please provide visual proof

Keep in mind that I am only showing the first year of a major uniform change for right now. I'm going to show the Astros from 1962 until their switch to the rainbows in the mid-70's. After a few comments I will post the rest up.

I am pretty much done with the Astros. I want to create a thread like this for every team but nobody has to worry about it getting cluttered with just my threads. It is going to be at least three weeks before I have another team ready to present. That would be plenty of time for this one to die down

I started with the Astros because they are one of the hardest teams to document. When they made the switch to the current style in 2000 they actually had 8 different uniforms! I will be showing all alternates and BP uniforms too which is something that is not done in the Hall of Fame database. So here is the first batch of uniforms from the history of the Houston Astros:

HOU_1962.png

HOU_1965.png

HOU_1971.png

 
 
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Have you thought about placing one batter one pitcher next to each other, using the other template you have? It might add a nice variation to the presentation.

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SAINT IGNATIUS WILDCATS | CLEVELAND BROWNS | CLEVELAND CAVALIERS | CLEVELAND INDIANS | THE OHIO STATE BUCKEYES

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Those players have huge calves. Must be injecting roids directly into their calves rather than their asses. The template looks great, if the goal was to illustrate a player. IMHO, it's just too realistic and detailed for something that is designed solely to show the design elements of the uniform. The shadows and wrinkles kind of distract (or at least compete for attention) from the scripts / designs. Just my opinion.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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Those players have huge calves. Must be injecting roids directly into their calves rather than their asses. The template looks great, if the goal was to illustrate a player. IMHO, it's just too realistic and detailed for something that is designed solely to show the design elements of the uniform. The shadows and wrinkles kind of distract (or at least compete for attention) from the scripts / designs. Just my opinion.

I agree about the shadows/wrinkles. They draw attention away from the actual uniform. The whole presentation would look better if you diminished the shadows a little bit.

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Very good job. I don't think the detail is hurting this project at all. What is really killing it, is the lack of eyes on the figures. It's so detailed in all areas, and then there are no eyes. It's very unnerving to look at a detail figure with no eyes and that's the first thing that catches my attention. I like the style, a sort of Japanese style, but without eyes, it's not working as well as it should.

 

 

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To answer some questions/comments:

-I don't use the batter template because I would have to do double the work. One template saves time. The other reason is because although I want to follow in the work Marc Okkonen started, he urged me to create something that was 100% mine. I think a pitcher does that since he used a batter. Plus that one didn't get as friendly reviews as the pitcher template did. Yea the legs are a little big but I can still roll with that. Although I used Chase Utley as the model for the batter, it might as well have been Barry Bonds because he looks like he is in the middle of transforming from Bruce Banner to the Hulk. I just decided to stay away from that one.

-I know the shadowing may be a little dark, but I did that to also save time. I need darker shadowing for a darker uniform and the way it is right now I never have to change the shadows. The face is something I can work on because I am not that far into the process. These are things that can be fixed if they need to be and it's the exact reason why I posted them (besides correcting uniform mistakes)

-The 1980 uniforms in this set features a cream colored uniform. The 1982 set has a grey uniform. This uniform was in service for only two seasons. After that they went to 'cream' or 'off white' (depending on what any given person wants to call it) That cream uniform so closely resembles the white that you can't really tell unless they are side by side.

-I have already received a few messages asking to do certain teams next and stuff like that. I did the Astros first because they are probably going to be the most difficult team to document. After that I am going to go off of how much information I have about the next team. For some teams I am limited because I don't have the graphic files for them yet. If it can't be found on this site I am either creating it myself or having another designer create it for me. Just in the uniform files I have posted here you can see logos and patches that can't be found on this site. But if it's not on this site I have to go through the trouble of getting them made. So for those reasons I cannot take requests on which team to do next. But I can tell you that I am leaning towards the Phillies because they are a fairly simple team to document and after spending three weeks on the Astros it will feel like I'm taking a break.

-I can't give anyone the template at this time. Like I have said before I know it's not perfect but I have already had people contacting me wanting it. I have been here for a little while now and I am always willing to share what I have created with other people. I go to the Uni Watch blog and the concepts section here and I see people using my templates all the time. I take pride in that sort of thing but I hope you understand that for now this one stays with me until the project is done. At that time I will be happy to share it as well.

-I really do appreciate all of the opinions and thank you for taking the time to comment (even if it is to say my template has roided-up calves :-) If anyone has anything else they would like to add feel free. I will continue to put the finishing touches on the Astros set for the next couple of days.

 
 
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I could honestly see the 1965 set worn today, with little to no modifications. This was such a fitting, sharp look:

Home:

81451113.jpg?v=1&c=NewsMaker&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA548983031FA7FD082E6C9CFFA353E80F7F816475BE03A0157A6

Road:

51373241.jpg?v=1&c=NewsMaker&k=2&d=3B7A669508CE9CA1B01FBB3564C22AB9647F9499E8ABBCDEA90FED3B1C029A50

They wore the home version of this the first home Saturday game this year, against the Phils. They looked great and got all of the details right. Stylistically, there is no reason it couldn't be worn regularly now. And I think they wore the 1970 version of that road jersey as a throwback right in 2002. It looked fine too.

Honestly, the only modification you'd need to make is to the sleeve patch. Swap that out for a new one and you'd be set.

Go Astros!

Go Texans!

Go Rockets!

Go Javelinas!

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-The 1980 uniforms in this set features a cream colored uniform. The 1982 set has a grey uniform. This uniform was in service for only two seasons. After that they went to 'cream' or 'off white' (depending on what any given person wants to call it) That cream uniform so closely resembles the white that you can't really tell unless they are side by side.

-I have already received a few messages asking to do certain teams next and stuff like that. I did the Astros first because they are probably going to be the most difficult team to document.

1. That Fernando Valenzuela 30/30 had highlights of him pitching against Houston, and it was pretty obvious the road uniforms they were wearing were grey, not cream, so there is recent video evidence to back you up.

2. The Mets-tweaking-little-things-every-season-for-a-decade will be running a close 2nd.

Go Astros!

Go Texans!

Go Rockets!

Go Javelinas!

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