WELCOME! 

 ...to a fan's library and gallery of Colt .45s baseball cards

 ...and more.                                                   --Glynn Ligon         

Houston Colt .45s Fight Song (.ram - RealAudio file) *

2011 was the 50th season of major league baseball in Houston.  This website remembers the players who entertained us the first three years as Colt .45s, before the luxury of the Astrodome.  My contribution to their memory is the collection and now display of a complete set of their baseball cards.   

For those people who need more than just the cards to lure them into this website, I've included interesting facts about the players.  Who has .45s cards but never played for the .45s?  Who hit the first .45s grand slam, won the first game, lost the no hitter, hit 3 homers for the blind boy, never hit a batter, taught Woodeshick to throw the slider, struck out the side on 9 pitches, won the final home game?  I've also included their nicknames.  Who was the Flea, the Preacher, the Barber, the Vulture, Bozo, Dumbo, No-Neck, and Skinny?  You probably know the easier ones--Frenchy, Woody, and Turk.

Along the way, I assembled four sets of Houston Colt .45s baseball cards, but the quintessential one is showcased here--100 cards professionally graded by Professional Sports Authenticators (PSA).  The core, single-player cards in the set are graded as 8 (near mint/mint) or 9 (mint).     

Arguably, there are more than 100 cards that could be considered for inclusion in a Colt .45s collection, and I have those as well.  So to establish a defensible standard for what constitutes the definitive set of "Houston Colt .45s Collectible & Trading Baseball Cards," I assembled a distinguished panel of experts.  Their corroboration of the standard, if not official, is undeniably expert.  (Go to the Standards tab to read the definitions and see the members of the panel.)

All that said, the sole purpose of this website and the effort to assemble and display these cards is to remember the Colt .45s team and especially the players that we, as fans, so much appreciated for bringing major league baseball to Houston.

I'd like to recognize two other websites that do a great job of recognizing the Colt .45s players.

http://www.astrosdaily.com/  The AstrosDaily site is the one place I've found that keeps up with the players.

http://thompsonian.info/colts.html  Bill Thompson's website The Houston Colt .45s is a running log of everything .45s from 1961 to the present day.  

  *Thanks to Bill Thompson and his Colt .45s website for providing this link to the fight song.  http://thompsonian.info/colts.html  

  This must be the ugliest baseball pennant ever made.  I bought it on eBay.  Measuring 6", it's tiny.

When you see a Houston Colt .45s cap, be sure it has an orange button on top.