Austin American Statesman, February 5th 1994

HOUSTON - The Houston Astros will take the field this year innavy blue and metallic gold, leaving behind all traces of the rainbowlook that shocked baseball purists and has trimmed their uniforms since the mid-1970s.

The Astros on Friday unveiled their new uniforms and logo, keeping just a bit of their past with the inclusion of a star in the team scheme but concentrating much more on a new look.

"We want to symbolize the new Houston Astros, the team of the 1990s and beyond," owner Drayton McLane said. "We wanted our fans to see something new, something very contemporary for young people . . . something that shows movement, something that shows the future."

McLane said the logo and uniforms introduced Friday were the results of "hundreds and hundreds" of designs submitted from around the nation.

The winning basic design came from Bill Woodward of Image Communications in Temple.

The home white button-down jersey features "Astros" inscribed across the chest in navy letters. The letters are inlined in white and outlined in navy with a gold-lined "moving star" inside the "o" of the club name. A patch with the Astrodome is on the left sleeve. Numbers on the back are navy.

Road uniforms are gray with "Houston" written across the front.

McLane said he had received numerous pleas from Houstonians that the team road uniforms say "Houston." In the past, both the home and away jerseys merely said "Astros."

A "holiday and Sunday" jersey will be navy blue with white letters and numbers.

"The star has a whole lot of significance to Houston," Woodward said. "I prefer to call it a shooting star, to give the element of progress, of movement."

The navy hats have just the slanted star, no letters.

"There's no need to add an `H.' The star says it all," said Anne Occi, vice president of design services for Major League Baseball Properties, who assisted in the development of the design.

The team logo features a metallic gold moving star inside of an outline of the Astrodome, plus the words ``Houston Astros."

"This will give everyone an indication the Houston Astros are a club on the rise and will move very fast," General Manager Bob Watson said.

"We will make this the most popular hat in America," new manager Terry Collins added.

"This is even better than we expected," said McLane, who said he's wanted to change the uniforms since he bought the club in 1992.

The uniforms are like nothing Houston fans have ever seen before. When the red, yellow and orange rainbow jerseys were introduced in the mid '70s, some baseball conservatives were appalled. The look was toned down in 1988, but the multicolored sleeves remained through last season.