Team colors: Astros

The Astros' manager was fired late last night. Did you know? Do you care?

I know that when it popped up on the news wire at 12:15 a.m. last night that I cared because it meant that I had to redo a page in the sports section of the newspaper. But it was the first time that I had thought about Brad Mills since probably the day he was hired as Houston's manager.

(One of those reasons might be because Topps stopped including managers in its base set after 2009).

The Astros just don't get a lot of attention from the general baseball public and get jerked around by Major League Baseball because nobody is paying attention. (Let's see MLB try to move the Cubs or the Cardinals to the American League West). If major league baseball operated like English Premier League soccer, the Astros would be easy relegation candidates.

It makes me a little sad, because I remember when the Astros were not only worth noticing, but a significant force in baseball. I'm not talking about the 2005 Astros, although it's probably the most successful version of the team. I'm talking about the '80s Astros. The 1980 team of Cedeno, Ryan and Niekro. The 1986 team of Davis, Cruz and Scott. The team that contended virtually every year from 1979-1987.

Those were the old orange rainbow Astros. The teams the current Astros pay tribute to every once in awhile when they trot out those wacky retro uniforms.

Today, the Astros wear some sort of red rust color, which was just one of the colors included in the Astros' old rainbow uniforms. The team calls the color "brick," not to be confused with the Diamondbacks' "sedona red." But I'd like them more if their main color was still "orange rainbow" ... and if they were staying in the National League.

With that in mind, it's time to look at which color Topps used the most with Astros cards through the years. Houston has changed its uniforms a lot since it came to be in the early '60s. So this should be interesting. ... to me anyway.

Once again, here are the colors used with the Astros for the years in which Topps chose colors based on the team featured:

1964 - orange and black
1965 - orange and gray
1966 - light green
1967 - purple
1968 - light green
1969 - light green
1971 - yellow and orange
1972 - yellow, blue and orange
1974 - black and red
1976 - pink and orange
1977 - pink, orange and light blue
1978 - green and pink
1979 - green and red
1980 - red, blue and yellow
1981 - blue and orange
1982 - red and brown
1983 - gold and blue
1984 - red and orange
1985 - yellow and orange
1986 - orange
1987 - blue
1988 - orange, yellow and blue
1989 - orange, yellow and purple
1991 - orange and blue
1992 - gold, orange and blue
1993 - orange and blue
1994 - orange and blue
1998 - blue
2002 - red and black
2003 - red and gold
2004 - red and gray
2005 - red and gray
2006 - orange and blue
2007 - orange and gray
2008 - red and gold
2009 - red
2010 - red
2011 - red
2012 - red

Astros team colors: brick (red), sand and black

What Topps says are the Astros' team colors: Orange.

Good ol' Topps still thinks of the Astros in orange terms, too.

And Cesar Cedeno want to know what you've done with his team.

(The tally: orange-17, red-13, blue-12, yellow-5, gold-4, black-3, gray-3, light green-3, pink-3, green-2, purple-2, light blue-1, brown-1)