Okay, here is a blog post sharing my experience with the 1976 Houston Astros:
So, the other day, I started digging into some old baseball stuff, and I came across the 1976 Houston Astros. I decided to find out as much as I could about them. First, I found their record for the season, which was 80 wins and 82 losses. Not too shabby, but it placed them 3rd in the NL West.
Then I checked out who was managing the team back then. It was Bill Virdon. I also learned that Tal Smith was the General Manager. I dug a little deeper and found out they played in the Astrodome, pretty famous stadium, they had 886,783 fans show up that year.
I also got into their roster for the 1976 season. I wanted to see every player who stepped on the field that year. The list is pretty long, and the names are all organized nicely, easy to read through, what a mess of names.
I dove into some more stats, like their Pythagorean W-L record, which was 77-85. It was all listed there, how many runs they scored. It was kind of interesting to see that stuff laid out like that. Also, I noticed some info about their road record: 34-46. And they listed some coaches too: Deacon Jones, Bob Lillis, and Tony Pacheco. I also looked at their batting, pitching, and fielding stats, and even found their game log and daily lineups. It was kind of a mess to make sense of it all, but hey, it was there.
Play-by-Play
I even stumbled upon a boxscore from a game on May 18, 1976, against the Atlanta Braves. It had the standard boxscore, linescore, play-by-play, and some game notes. Not that I know what to do with any of that stuff, but seeing the game broken down like that was pretty neat, like stepping back in time or something.
- Record: 80-82-0, Finished 3rd in NL_West
- Manager: Bill Virdon (80-82)
- General Manager: Tal Smith
- Ballpark: Astrodome
- Attendance: 886,783
- Pythagorean W-L: 77-85, 625 Runs
- Road record: 34-46 (348 runs scored, 393 allowed)
- Coaches: Deacon Jones, Bob Lillis, Tony Pacheco
- Team Roster: A comprehensive team roster with every player who appeared in a game during the 1976 season.
- Game Log: Daily lineups and detailed stats are available.
- May 18, 1976 Game: Boxscore available for the game between Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.
I must have spent a few hours going through all this. It wasn’t exactly a productive day, but it was a fun little trip down memory lane. Just imagine, stepping back into 1976, seeing those players on the field, the Astrodome packed with fans. It’s a whole different world.
