Crane Rules
Score one for history! Astros to keep smoking pistol on Colt .45s throwbackjerseys after gun fight
The smoking pistol on those Colt .45s jerseys that alarmed Major League Baseball so much are here to stay.
After MLB backed off its gun ban on the throwbacks that the Houston Astros will wear for select games during their 50th anniversary season, new owner Jim Crane wasted little time in listening to the fans' desire to stay true to history. The Astros announced Friday that the Colt .45s jerseys they wear during the 2012 season will have the original pistol.
Selig wouldn't let the Astros stay in the National League. But he gave in on the pistols.
There had been concern from commissioner Bud Selig and other MLB officials that the pistol is inappropriate in today's more gun-sensitive climate.
In the end, history won out though.
Keeping the authentic look of the jerseys the Astros wore from 1962 to 1964 when the franchise was called the Colt .45s was overwhelming favored by Astros fans the club informally surveyed.
"We're going to listen to the fans," Crane said at an event at Minute Maid Park Thursday night where season ticket holders took batting practice and played catch on the Major League field.
“We listened to our fans, who were almost unanimously in favor of wearing the original jersey," Crane added in a statement he released Friday. "We wanted to honor all of our past uniforms during this special 50th anniversary season, and we felt it was important to be true to the tradition of the franchise.”
The Astros will wear the pistol jerseys as part of its Flashback Fridays 50th anniversary season uniform nights — on April 10 vs. the Chicago Cubs and April 20 vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The club received hundreds of pleas from fans to fight to keep the original jerseys after it came out that MLB wanted to ban the original smoking pistol.
Call it a win for Houston baseball.
Selig wouldn't let the Astros stay in the National League. But he gave in on the pistols.
It's not the biggest win in the world, but it's still a win. And Crane, who started out talking about changing the Astros' name in one of his first press conferences as the official owner, is showing more and more that he gets a fan base that treasures its history.
