Download or read book Space City and Shortstops written by Travis Glenn Wise and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis examines Houston's push for and acquisition of a baseball franchise in the 1950s and 1960s and how it impacted the city's changing identity. By placing the ballclub in the context of Houston's growth machine, this paper argues that the Houston Sports Association utilized the team as a means to enhance the city's image and promote civic growth. From 1962, when the franchise first came into being as the Houston Colt .45s, to 1965 and beyond, when Roy Hofheinz renamed it the Houston Astros to fit with the completed Astrodome, the ballclub reflected Houston's shifting boosterism as the city turned from promoting a mythic old-frontier image to lauding Space City, USA. Drawing from books, newspapers, and correspondence written during the fifties and sixties, this thesis demonstrates the hope that Houston's growth machine had for the team and how they used the franchise to display the city's coming of age.