[zeprock]

Great question! And the first games were played in the astrodome in 1965 and they were already renamed the Astros? Very strange.
Hopefully, someone has an answer or a reasonable hypothesis.
My partial guess is that perhaps they were reusing old pic of players since Topps was in NYC they usually waited until teams were visiting The Yankees (or Mets) to take photos (background Yankees facade in soooooo many baseball cards photos) ... other than that, I'm out.

But that wouldn't explain why the cards say "Houston" instead of "Astros" on them. All the other cards have the team name. even the 1967 cards say Astros.<IMG SRC="https://www.beckett.com/forums/images/smilies/huh.gif">

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Found this explanation online:

In 1968 Topps stopped using the name "Astros", instead using the team name of "Houston", and did not show the Astros hats or uniforms. The cards used headshots with blacked out or missing hats. In 1969 they followed the same pattern until the fifth series, when the uniforms were suddenly shown again. In 1970, things were finally corrected, and the name "Astros" was back.

The unconfirmed story is that the Astros and Monsanto (the maker of AstroTurf) had a dispute over the use of the name, and Topps either chose or was compelled to stay out of it. The Astros had very attractive uniforms in those days, but they were largely unseen by the kids of 1968 and 1969.

https://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com...6-conflict