Astros Uniform History

[JayJaxon]

I think the positioning of the star and if the wordmark even overlapped it had a lot to do with the size of the uniform. Look at the pitcher that was posted just above this. HOUSTON clearly overlaps the star. But in the picture below taken from a game-worn jersey, the wordmark barely touches the star. The top portion of the star also extends further up than the first button. I think it would do some good to bring the whole thing down just a bit. But it looks like they were all a little different.

[TruColor]

I just posted an Astros team colors retrospective on my blog:

http://colorwerx.blo...eam-colors.html

Hopefully, that will clear up any questions on the exact colors used.

Thanks for doing that. Not sure if this has been brought up or not, but why do the photos of the 1971-74 uniforms make the orange look more like red? Just about any Topps baseball card from this era looks that way, but when the switch was made to the rainbow jersey, the orange looked obviously lighter. Was this just a result of poor photography and/or printing technology?

To take this a step further, I could swear that I read online that the color was actually red from 1971 to 1974, and I think I even saw a red astros cap for sale online, but the colors posted above dispute that. Can anyone shed some light? Has the shade of orange always been identical?

The primary Orange has been fairly consistent since 1962. What may have looked lighter were the shades of Orange that were used in the rainbow striping (that WERE lighter).

We had a fairly hilarious thread about this subject a couple of years ago...poor photography and/or poor lighting have contributed to the Orange looking Red.

Here's a few pics that were presented in that particular thread:

1972 road uni:

1972 home uni:

..and, a 1974 media guide cover that should definitively put this argument to rest:

[TruColor]

One other point on the Orange: the shade of Orange used in the early years (Colt .45s, Astros from 1962 through 1974) was this:

When the Astros went to the rainbow unis, this particular shade was really only used in the "star" logo on the caps. It was still considered the primary Orange, but wasn't predominantly present in the rest of the uniform.

[DarthBrett]

Interesting about the script and the relation to the star. I agree though, it probably should be just a tad lower. The beginning of the script where the 'H' is also appears to start right around the second button, so I guess that might be a good place to pinpoint the location of where to place the logo/script.

The update definitely looks more accurate than before.

[oddball]

I love you ColorWerx!!! That's man-love, for anyone thinking otherwise!

[JayJaxon]

Unless anyone else can point out errors (other than those already mentioned) then I am here to announce that I am completely done with the Astros. Obviously I will field more Astros-related questions in this thread but in a couple of weeks when I'm done with the next team I will open a new one. Thanks for everyone that helped point out errors. Thanks to ColorWerx and DarthBrett for hooking me up with the proper colors and reference pictures.