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A fan reaches over the dugout to shake palms with pitcher Jose Lima of the Houston Astros after recreation 4 of the Nationwide League Divisional Sequence October 9, 1999.
JEFF HAYNES/AFP through Getty PhotographsThe day lastly got here on October 3, 1999, for the Astros to have their final regular season game within the Astrodome.
“I bear in mind pondering as I walked across the Dome, we’re simply going to go away this,” Acosta, who started his stint because the Astros historian that very same 12 months, says. “This has been our house.”
Acosta had probably the greatest seats in the home to look at all of it unfold: the printed sales space. “The confetti fell from the rafters of the Astrodome. Willie Nelson was there,” he remembers. “It was a extremely great day and considerably unhappy for me.”
The common season ended on a excessive notice, with the Astros securing one other NL Central title due to a 9-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Biggio and pitcher Mike Hampton took a celebratory experience across the Astrodome on a Harley Davidson bike whereas puffing cigars.
It could be six days afterward October 9 that the Astros would take to the sector one final time when the group misplaced to the Atlanta Braves within the NL Divisional Playoffs.
Whereas Acosta believes that the Astros did a fantastic job of celebrating their final days within the Astrodome that 12 months, he says that folks have been so targeted on the brand new stadium that no plans have been made for the historic facility.
“It felt just like the Astrodome was taken without any consideration and left by the wayside,” Acosta says. He believes {that a} concentrate on Houston tradition has occurred over the previous 20 years the place locals are extra tuned into what makes town nice and easy methods to domesticate it.
“That occurred in all probability 10 years too late,” Acosta laments. “If it had occurred within the mid-90s, folks would have been rallying across the Astrodome.”
There aren’t any present plans for the way forward for the Astrodome, although a number of have been proposed because the behemoth closed its doorways to the general public in 2009. From an occasion heart to its last demolition, not one of the proposals have met Harris County’s necessities: no requisite of serious public capital funding, the flexibility to generate income to offset bills, and that it’s a public profit.
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