Former ballpark · 1965 – 1999
Astrodome
Houston, TX
- Opened
- 1965
- Closed
- 1999
- League
- NL
The lore
The Astrodome: The Roof That Killed the Grass
The roof that let in daylight also killed the grass beneath it, and the Dome never played on real turf again.
What the Roof Did
The Astrodome opened on April 9, 1965, with an exhibition between the Astros and the New York Yankees before 47,876 fans — a record for an indoor sporting event at the time. The building was designed to keep weather out while letting daylight through translucent Lucite panels in the roof. The panels caused glare that made fly balls difficult to track, so they were painted over. That blocked the sunlight, and by the end of the inaugural season the natural grass was dead.
Judge Roy Hofheinz negotiated with Monsanto's Chemstrand division to install a synthetic surface branded AstroTurf — the first use of artificial turf in a professional sports venue. The first game on the new surface came July 19, 1966, when the Astros beat the Phillies 8-2. Every game afterward was played on something manufactured, not grown.
What the Ground Held
The first regular-season game had come on April 12, 1965, with the Phillies beating the Astros 2-0 behind Chris Short's four-hit shutout. Six no-hitters were pitched in the Dome, all by Astros pitchers, including Nolan Ryan's fifth career no-hitter on September 26, 1981 — a 5-0 blanking of the Dodgers.
The moment that carried the building came on September 25, 1986, when Mike Scott clinched the National League West for Houston with a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants. It was the first time in NL history a no-hitter had won a division-clinching game. The park also hosted two All-Star Games, in 1968 and 1986.
The Dome's electronic scoreboard stretched 474 feet wide, stood four stories high, and weighed over 300 tons, with more than 50,000 light bulbs running across some 1,200 miles of wiring. Every one of the park's 42,217 seats was cushioned, and the building featured 53 luxury suites — an innovation rarely seen at the time.
The Astrodome stood from 1965 to 1999. It has not hosted a game since.
Reporting: Society for American Baseball Research, Ballparks of Baseball. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.
By the Desk · filed 2026-07-24 — the piece reads as of its filing; the park record around it is live · every fact in this piece comes from a filed, sourced research pack and clears an independent fact-check, and nothing is edited after filing.
Where it stood
Houston, TX. We don’t have exact coordinates for this park in the historical record — we’d rather say so than pin the wrong spot.
Sources
- Retrosheet · as of 2026-07-23
The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at 20 Sunset Rd., Newark, DE 19711.