How to Be a Red Bulls Fan In Houston -- 2022 Edition

Food. Being a "Wild West" city, you might expect Houston to have Western-themed stands with "real American food" at its stadiums. Being a Southern State, you might also expect to have barbecue. Being in South Texas, you might expect Mexican food. And you would be right on all counts.

They have Texas Fare at Sections 105, 110, 117 and 136; Pizza on the Pitch at 107 and 138; Taqueria Los Anaranjados (Spanish for "the Orange Ones") at 115 and 135; Extreme Dogs & Nachos at 122; Bayou City BBQ at 125 and 133; and Far Post & East End Grill at 127 and 139;

Team History Displays. The 1996 MLS charter club version of the San Jose Earthquakes (replaced there in 2008) moved to Houston for the 2006 season, and, in shocking fashion -- shocking not just for the bright orange jerseys -- won the next 2 MLS Cups. They also won Conference Championships in 2011 and 2012, although they lost the MLS Cup Finals on those occasions. And they won the 2018 U.S. Open Cup.
The Dynamo hang banners for their titles under the roof at the south end. They do not have any retired numbers, or a team hall of fame. Nor did they announce a 10th Anniversary Team in 2016. Probably their greatest legend was U.S. national team mainstay DaMarcus Beasley. He helped the national team win 4 CONCACAF Gold Cups.
They also contest the Texas Derby with FC Dallas, and have won it 7 of the 13 times it's been played. In total games, it's closer Dallas 18 wins, Houston 15, 16 ties, and Dallas leads in goals 77-70. The seasonal winner gets a trophy named El Capitán, a replica 18th Century mountain howitzer cannon.

From 2009 to 2018, they annually ran the Dynamo Charities Cup, a friendly against a club form another country, usually in the middle of the MLS season so that the opposition won't have to interrupt its own league season. They beat Monterrey of Mexico in the inaugural match in 2009, C.D. Águila of El Salvador in 2010, Stoke City of England in 2013, Santos Laguna of Mexico in 2015, and Real Sociedad of Spain on penalties in 2016; while losing to Bolton Wanderers of England in 2011, Valencia of Spain in 2012, Aston Villa of England in 2014, and Mexican teams Cruz Azul in 2017 and Monterrey in 2018. It is not scheduled to be revived in 2022.

Stuff. The Soccer Shop is located opposite Section 114 on Texas Avenue, toward the northwest corner of the Stadium, and is open for up to one hour before gates open. Fans must have a valid ticket to enter on matchdays. Whether they go along with the Western/Texas theme and sell cowboy hats with the team logo on them, I don't know.

In 2018, Bonnie Hinman published the Dynamo's book in MLS' team series. There are commemorative DVDs for their 2006 and 2007 MLS Cup seasons.

During the Game. If you were wearing Dallas Cowboy gear to a Houston Texans game, or Texas Longhorns gear to a Texas A&M Aggies game (or vice versa), or FC Dallas gear to this stadium, you might be in trouble. But Dynamo fans aren't especially hostile to New Yorkers, so safety shouldn't be an issue.

Knock, knock. "Who's there?" Orange. "Orange who?" Orange you glad whoever designed the Dynamo's uniforms didn't design your team's uniforms? They're so orange (How orange are they?), they make the Dutch national team look like men in gray flannel suits! The Dynamo even have "Forever Orange" as one of their slogans. So if you don't antagonize anyone, and you keep hydrated so you don't overheat, the greatest danger at a Houston Dynamo match will be to your retinas!

Upon the move from San Jose, the club was originally named Houston 1836, in a nod to German sports clubs naming themselves after their year of founding. Before the large influx of Mexicans and other Hispanics, Germans were the largest ethnic group in Houston.

Obviously, this soccer team wasn't founded in 1836 -- no existing professional sports team, anywhere in the world, goes back that far -- but the City of Houston was, so it seemed like a good idea at first. But the new team's original fan base, with perhaps a plurality of Mexican-Americans, was infuriated: For them, 1836 was the year that Mexico lost Texas.

So the name was changed. But while "Dynamo" is a name that suggests power, it was also the name of several teams founded by Communist countries for the "company teams" of their secret police units, including in Moscow, East Berlin, Kiev, Tblisi, etc. How did that go over in right-wing Texas? For once, the State's penchant for blithering ignorance helped: Nobody seemed to notice the similarity.

A Mexican citizen named Gabriel Brener is the majority owner of the club, but boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya is a part-owner. The club accepts applications for National Anthem singers, rather than having a regular do it. Unlike most MLS clubs, they have cheerleaders (this is Texas, after all), known as the Dynamo Girls. Their mascot is a fox named Dynamo Diesel, who looks suspiciously like the Car Fox character from the Carfax commercials. And the Dynamo are promising postgame fireworks.

The main Dynamo supporters groups all sit in the North End, or La Zona Naranja (The Orange Zone), Sections 215, 216 and 217. They include the Texian Army, named for the army that won Texas' independence from Mexico in 1836 (that name doesn't seem to have offended Hispanic locals); La Bateria (The Battery); the Brickwall Firm; and El Batallón (The Batallion).

Many of their songs are in Spanish, including the standby used by the Red Bulls and many others: "¡Vamos, vamos Houston, esta noche, tenemos que ganar!" (Let's go, let's go Houston! This night, we have to win!)

One unpleasant side of Dynamo support was homophobic remarks made on one of the groups' Twitter feeds in the Spring of 2013. They have since accepted the backlash, and cut that stuff out.

After the Game. Houston is a comparatively low-crime city, and not a city known for having particularly nutty fans. As long as you behave yourself, they'll probably behave themselves, win or lose.

Post-COVID, there appears to be no go-to bar for New Yorkers living in the Houston Area.

If your visit to Houston is during the European soccer season, and you want to watch your favorite club play, you can do so at the following locations:

* Arsenal: Public House, 2802 White Oak Drive, 3 miles northwest of downtown. Bus 40 to Heights Blvd. & White Oak Drive, then a 15-minute walk east on White Oak.

* Liverpool: Hugh O'Connor's, 7620 Katy Freeway, about 6 miles northwest of downtown. Bus 85.

* Manchester United, Aston Villa and Barcelona: The Richmond Arms, 5920 Richmond Drive, 8 miles west of downtown. Bus 20 to Sage Road & San Felipe Road, then transfer to Bus 32 to Fountainview Drive at Richmond Drive.

* Everton, Manchester City, Celtic and Bayern Munich: The Phoenix Brewpub, 1915 Westheimer Road at McDuffie Street, about 3 miles southwest of downtown. Bus 82 to Westheimer at Hazard.

* Chelsea and Real Madrid: King's Court Bar & Kitchen, 903 Hutchins Street, across from the stadium's south end.

* Newcastle United: The Backyard Grill, 9453 Jones Road, 18 miles northwest of downtown. No public transit on weekends.

* Tottenham Hotspur: Pimlico Irish Pub, 810 Waugh Drive, 3 1/2 miles west of downtown. Bus 40.

* Italian teams: Nick's Place, 2713 Rockridge Drive, at Westheimer Road, about 12 miles west of downtown. Bus 82 to Westheimer & Westerland. Be warned, New York soccer fan: This is also listed as the home base of New England Patriots fans, thus probably also Boston Red Sox fans. Things could turn nasty.

Sidelights. On November 30, 2018, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and Houston came in 18th. Houston's sports history isn't all wrapped up in the Astrodome. There are other sites worth checking out.

The Dynamo's 1st home, from 2006 to 2011, was Robertson Stadium. They had their 2006 and 2007 championship seasons there, although they didn't play the MLS Cup Finals there. In 2006, they beat the New England Revolution at Pizza Hut Park, now Toyota Stadium, home of their arch-rivals, FC Dallas. In 2007, they beat the Revs again, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.

Built in 1942 as Public School Stadium, and known as Jeppesen Stadium from 1958 to 1980, Corbin J. Robertson Stadium (named for a member of the University of Houston's board of regents) seated 36,000 people at its peak, and was also home to the University of Houston football team from 1946 to 1950, and again from 1998 to 2012; and was the 1st home of the Houston Oilers, from 1960 to 1964.
The Oilers won the 1960 American Football League Championship Game there, over the Los Angeles Chargers (who moved to San Diego the next year), but lost the 1962 AFL Championship Game there to the Dallas Texans (who became the Kansas City Chiefs the next year). They won the 1961 AFL Championship Game on the road.

TDECU Stadium, the new home of University of Houston football, has been built at the site, and opened in 2014. 3874 Holman Street at Cullen Blvd. Number 52 bus.
The Oilers played the 1965, '66 and '67 seasons at Rice Stadium, home of Rice University. Although built in 1950 and probably already obsolete, it seated a lot more people than did the Astrodome, and so Super Bowl VIII was played there instead of the Astrodome in January 1974, and the Miami Dolphins won it -- and haven't won a Super Bowl since.

It has been significantly renovated, and Rice still uses it. University Blvd. at Greenbriar Street, although the mailing address is 6100 S. Main Street. Number 700 bus.

Before there were the Astros, or even the Colt .45's, there were the Houston Buffaloes. The Buffs played at Buffalo Stadium, a.k.a. Buff Stadium, for most of their history, from 1928 to 1961, when the Colt .45's made them obsolete.

The Buffs won 8 Texas League Pennants: 1928, 1931, 1940, 1947, 1951, 1954, 1956 and 1957. The stadium was at the southwest corner of Leeland Street & Cullen Blvd., about 2 1/2 miles southeast of downtown. A furniture store is on the site now. Number 20 bus.

In 1965, the Astrodome opened, and was nicknamed "The Eighth Wonder of the World." It sure didn't seem like an exaggeration: The 1st roofed sports stadium in the world. (Supposedly, the Romans built stadia with canvas roofs, but that's hardly the same thing.) The Astros played there until 1999, and then moved into Enron Field/Minute Maid Park for the 2000 season. The Oilers played at the Astrodome from 1968 to 1996, when they moved to Tennessee to become the Titans.
In 2002, the new NFL team, the Houston Texans, began play next-door to the Astrodome, at NRG Stadium (formerly Reliant Stadium), which, like Minute Maid Park, has a retractable roof. Suddenly, the mostly-vacant Astrodome seemed, as one writer put it, like a relic of a future that never came to be. (This same writer said the same thing of Shea Stadium and, across Roosevelt Avenue, the surviving structures of the 1964 World's Fair.)
Once, the Astrodome was flashy enough to be the site of movies like The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training and Murder at the World Series. (Both in 1977. In the latter, the Astros, who had never yet gotten close to a Pennant, played the Series against the Oakland Athletics, who had just gotten fire-sold by owner Charlie Finley.)

The Astrodome also hosted the legendary 1968 college basketball game between Number 1 UCLA (with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then still Lew Alcindor) and Number 2 University of Houston (whose Elvin Hayes led them to victory, before falling to UCLA in that year's Final Four), the 1971 Final Four (UCLA beating Villanova in the Final), and the cheese-tastic 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, the "Battle of the Sexes."

The Astrodome hosted 3 fights for the Heavyweight Champion of the World, with the defending Champion winning all 3 by knockout: Muhammad Ali over Cleveland Williams on November 14, 1966; Ali over Ernie Terrell on February 6, 1967; and Larry Holmes over Randall "Tex" Cobb on November 26, 1982.

Elvis Presley sang there on February 27, 28 and March 1, 1970 and on March 3, 1974. It hosted Selena's last big concert before her murder in 1995, and when Jennifer Lopez starred in the film version, it was used for the re-creation. In 2004, the same year NRG Stadium hosted the Super Bowl (which was won by... Janet Jackson, I think), the Astrodome was used to film a high school football playoff for the film version of Friday Night Lights; the old Astros division title banners can be clearly seen.

Today, though, the Astrodome seems, like the Republican Party that held a ridiculously bigoted Convention there in 1992, stuck in the past, and not just because they renominated failed President George H.W. Bush. The former Eighth Wonder of the World is now nicknamed the Lonely Landmark, and while it served as a shelter for people displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, since 2008, when it was hit with numerous code violations, only maintenance workers and security guards have been allowed to enter. There is currently no plan on what to do with the Astrodome.

NRG Stadium hosted the Final Four in 2011 (Connecticut beating Butler in the Final), and earlier this year (Villanova beating North Carolina). It hosted Super Bowl LI in 2017, with (take your pick: The Atlanta Falcons choking, or the New England Patriots cheating). It hosted 4 games each in the CONCACAF Gold Cups of 2005 and 2007, and 2 games each in that tournament in 2009, 2011, 2019 and 2021.

The windows in the roof made it impossible to see the ball in the Sun. So they were painted, and then the grass died. So the 1st artificial turf in sports had to be laid down in 1966, known as AstroTurf. Sandy Koufax, he of the mosquito quip, hated the turf, saying, "I was one of those guys who pitched without a cup. I wouldn't do it on this stuff." And Dick Allen of the Philadelphia Phillies, looking at the 1st artificial field in baseball history, said, "If a horse can't eat it, I don't want to play on it."

The Astrodome hosted a 1988 match between the national soccer teams of the U.S. and Ecuador, which Ecuador won. NRG Stadium has hosted 3 such matches, a 2008 draw with Mexico, a 2011 win over Panama, and a 2016 loss to Argentina in the Copa America. The Mexico team has made it a home-away-from-home, playing several matches there.

The NRG complex, including the Astrodome, is at 8400 Kirby Drive at NRG Parkway. Number 700 bus.

For the 2000 season, the Astros moved to Minute Maid Park, at 501 Crawford Street at Texas Avenue, 4 blocks west of PNC Stadium.

The NBA's Houston Rockets played at the Summit, later known as the Compaq Center, from 1975 to 2003. Elvis sang at The Summit on August 28, 1976. It's been converted into the Lakewood Church Central Campus, a megachurch presided over by Dr. Joel Osteen. 3700 Southwest Freeway at Timmons Lane. Number 53 bus.

The Rockets now play in the Toyota Center, at 1510 Polk Street at Crawford Street. It's 9 blocks south of Minute Maid Park, and a little bit southwest of PNC Stadium.

The Houston Aeros, with Gordie Howe and his sons Mark and Marty, won the World Hockey Association championships of 1974 and 1975, while playing at the Sam Houston Coliseum, before moving into the Summit in 1975 and folding in 1978. The ABA's Houston Mavericks played there from 1967 to 1969. Elvis sang there on October 13, 1956, and the Beatles played there on August 19, 1965. Before the opening of The Summit, the Rockets played at the Coliseum, and at the Astrodome.

The Sam Houston Coliseum was built in 1937 and demolished in 1998. It replaced Sam Houston Hall, where the 1928 Democratic Convention nominated Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, who thus became the 1st Catholic nominated for President by a major party.

The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is now on the site. 801 Bagby Street, at Rusk Street, downtown.

The nearest NHL team to Houston is the Dallas Stars, 242 miles away. If Houston had an NHL team, its metropolitan area would rank 10th in population in the NHL.

There's another notable sports site in Houston: The U.S. Military Entry Processing Station, in the Customs House, where Muhammad Ali, then living and training in Houston, had to report to fulfill his draft obligation. He did report there, on April 28, 1967, and refused to be drafted. (To be fair, they did call his birth name, Cassius Clay, not his legal name, Muhammad Ali.) Ali was convicted of draft evasion and stripped of the Heavyweight Title. He stayed out of prison on appeal, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction.

The Customs House is still standing, and still used in part by the U.S. Department of Defense. 701 San Jacinto Street. Central Station on METRORail.
In addition to the preceding, Elvis sang at Hofheinz Pavilion on November 12, 1971; and June 4 and 5, 1975. He also sang at the City Auditorium on October 8, 1955 and April 21, 1956. That's better known as the venue where R&B singer Johnny Ace mistakenly shot himself before a show on Christmas Day, December 25, 1955. The Jones Hall for the Performing Arts replaced it in 1966. 615 Louisiana Street at Capitol Street, downtown.

Also, early in his career, Elvis sang in Houston at the Paladium Club (8100 S. Main Street, near the Astrocomplex) on November 26, 27 and 28, 1954; Cook's Hoedown (603 Capitol Street, around the corner from Jones Hall) on November 27 and December 28, 1954, and April 24 and August 7, 1955; Magnolia Gardens (12044 Riverside Street, no public transit) on April 24, May 22, June 19 and August 7, 1955; and Eagles Hall at 2204 Louisiana Street on January 1 and March 19, 1955 (2204 Louisiana Street, downtown). All of these have since been demolished.

Elvis sang near the University of Texas campus in Austin, 160 miles to the northwest, at Dessau Hall on March 17, 1955, the Sportscenter on August 25, 1955, the Skyline Club on January 18, 1956, and the Municipal Auditorium on March 28, 1977. And he sang near the Texas A&M campus, 100 miles to the northwest, at the Rodeo Grounds in Bryan on August 23, 1955 and the G. Rolle White Coliseum in College Station on October 3, 1955;

Elvis also sang in South Texas at the City Auditorium in Beaumont, 85 miles to the northeast, on June 20 and 21, 1955 and January 17, 1956; at the football stadium at Conroe High School, 40 miles to the north, on August 24, 1955; in Corpus Christi, 200 miles to the southwest, at the Hoedown Club on July 3, 1955 and the Memorial Coliseum on April 16, 1956; in Galveston, 50 miles to the southeast, at the City Auditorium on January 16, 1956; at the baseball field in Gonzales, 130 miles to the west, on August 26, 1955; at Woodrow Wilson High School in Port Arthur, 90 miles to the east on November 25, 1955; and at Southwest Texas State University (LBJ's alma mater, now "Texas State"), 165 miles to the west, on October 6, 1955.

There are other places that might be considered "South Texas" where he sang, but I'll include them with "West Texas" when I do this for the San Antonio Spurs.

The tallest building in Houston, and in all of Texas, is the JPMorgan Chase Tower, formerly the Texas Commerce Tower. It was built in 1982 at 600 Travis Street at Texas Avenue, downtown, and stands 1,002 feet tall, rising 75 stories above the concrete over the bayou. It is the tallest 5-sided building in the world.

Houston's version of New York's American Museum of Natural History is the Houston Museum of Natural Science, in Hermann Park, at Main Street and Hermann Park Drive. The Houston Museum of Fine Arts is at 1001 Bissonnet Street, just 5 blocks away. Both can be reached by the Number 700 bus.

Of course, the name "Houston" is most connected with two things: Its namesake, the legendary Senator, Governor and war hero Sam Houston; and the Johnson Space Center, the NASA control center named after President Lyndon B. Johnson, who, as Senate Majority Leader, wrote the bill creating NASA and the Space Center, because he thought it would bring a lot of jobs and money to Houston (and he was right).

Most historic sites relating to Sam, however, are not in the city that bears his name. As for reaching the Johnson Space Center, it's at 2101 NASA Parkway and Saturn Lane. The Number 249 bus goes there, so if you don't have a car, Houston, you won't have a problem.

Although Houston was the post-Presidential home for George H.W. and Barbara Bush, his Presidential Library is at Texas A&M University, 100 miles away in College Station. Both Bushes died in 2018, and were buried at the Library at TAMU. As a former baseball player, Bush is the only President so far who had his Library designed by HOK, designer of several sports facilities including our own MetLife Stadium.

Now that their privacy is no longer an issue, I can tell you that the Bushes lived at 9 South West Oak Drive, in West Oaks, about 6 miles west of downtown. Bus 32. But it's in a gated community, so you still might not be able to see it.

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Houston can be hot, but it's a good sports town, and, best of all, it's not Dallas. So there can be a good old time in the hot town tonight.