Deep in heart of baseball

Astros tap into songs to draw fans. As team switches to American League, music paves way.

Baseball and music have a long history together, as evidenced by “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Damn Yankees,” “There Used to Be a Ballpark” and “Talkin’ Baseball” — not to mention the novelty songs played in stadiums during the seventh inning stretch, like “Lazy Mary” at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.

The Houston Astros looked to that heritage during the 2012 season, when the team borrowed from “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” for its marketing efforts. The campaign, which carried the theme “Root. Root. Root.” was meant to rally fans after 2011, when the team finished in the cellar of the National League Central Division with 56 wins and 106 losses — a .346 win-loss percentage, its worst since joining the league in 1962.

The “Root. Root. Root.” campaign proved popu- lar, although the Astros finished last in the division again with an even worse win-loss record: 55 wins and 107 losses, a .340 percentage.

Now, in getting ready for the 2013 season — when the team plans a number of major changes, including a switch to the American League — a second song is providing inspiration for the Astros’ advertising. Although the tune is not baseball-related, it is safe to say that fans know it: “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” often referred to jocularly as the Texas national anthem, is played during the seventh inning stretch at the Astros’ ballpark, Minute Maid Park, after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

The Astros are repurposing the lyric “The stars at night are big and bright” as “The star is big and bright and back for good,” and as “Big and bright. Back for good.” The references are to the star that appeared in the team’s logo for decades. Redesigned logos and uniforms that were introduced last week revive the five-pointed star, in orange or blue, over which a white H is superimposed.

The two “big and bright” phrases will appear in the 2013 campaign along with “Root. Root. Root.” Some ads will urge fans to “Get Ready to Root. Root. Root.” and will include a familiar expression addressing the coming season: “It’s a Whole New Ballgame.”

The Astros’ ad initiatives are under the purview of Kathleen Harrington Clark, who joined the team in March as vice president for marketing and strategy after working for the last decade as a marketing consultant and, before that, for companies like Compaq.

The 1.6 million fans who attended the Astros’ home games in 2012 “are our core, who root for their baseball team regardless of record,” Clark said. They are “the same fans who sing the loudest to ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas,’” she added, and “the base where we start going up from.”

The “Whole New Ballgame” tack is “honest and upfront,” Clark said, acknowledging that the team is “in a rebuilding mode” under Jim Crane, who became the owner in November 2011. The change in ownership was contingent on the Astros’ leaving the National League Central for the American League West as part of Major League Baseball’s plans to rebalance its 30 teams.

Because baseball is heavily based on tradition, Clark said, it may take some fans time to adjust to the Astros’ playing in the American League after “we’ve been a National League city for 50 years.”

But it should help, she said, that “we’ll be bringing in teams people want to see,” like the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers, a natural intrastate rival.

The Astros’ opening game on April 2 will be against the Rangers, and what was called the Lone Star Series when the games were interleague will be more important now that they are intraleague, Clark said.

The Astros spent about $100,000 during the 2012 season on advertising, Clark said, in addition to commercial time and ad space obtained through deals with Fox Sports Houston and The Houston Chronicle.