Astros

Daikin Park sits in downtown Houston. The Astros settled there in 2000, when the ballpark opened as Enron Field and went through two further name changes before Daikin bought the naming rights in January 2025. A 2017 renovation took out the odd hill in centre field known as Tal's Hill and left the current capacity at 41,168.

The franchise began in 1962 as the Houston Colt.45s, an expansion side in the National League backed by a group that included Judge Roy Hofheinz. The Astros name arrived in 1965 with the move into the Astrodome, chosen to match Houston's role in the space programme; the building itself, billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World, introduced both the domed stadium and artificial turf to the sport.

Success came in two waves. The first, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was built around Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, both later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and carried the club to its first National League pennant in 2005. The second began after the Astros switched to the American League in 2013 and produced a run of homegrown talent, José Altuve chief among them, that delivered the franchise's two World Series titles, in 2017 and 2022. A sign-stealing scheme uncovered in 2019 cost the general manager and manager their jobs for a season and the club draft picks and a fine, though the title itself stood. It is a long way from that first game in 1962, an 11-2 win over the Chicago Cubs at Colt Stadium.