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When Major League Baseball returned to Washington in 2005, the Nationals played their games at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. It had been 34 years since the city had a baseball team, but the stadium still held the remains of its last star before the game ended.
At the back of the upper deck, several seats were painted white, marking the longest home runs hit by Frank Howard, who, during his seven seasons with the dismal Washington Senators, was recognized as one of the hardest hitters and the most feared in baseball.
Standing 6-foot-7 and weighing about 270 pounds, he was an imposing force on an otherwise forgettable team, launching monumental home runs that sometimes flew more than 500 feet.
When the Nationals arrived at RFK Stadium more than three decades after Mr. Howard’s last game, the players looked at the white seats in the distance on the upper deck and couldn’t believe a baseball could be hit that far.
“They would ask me, ‘Where was home plate back then?’” Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell wrote in an online conversation in 2016. “I would say, ‘Where it is now, within a foot or two.’ No player ever believed me. They considered it impossible.
Mr. Howard, who twice led the American League in home runs and remained a favorite of disenfranchised Washington baseball fans, died Oct. 30 at a hospital in Aldie, Virginia. He was 87 years old.
The cause was complications from a stroke, his daughter Catherine Braun said.
A college basketball star at Ohio State, the Bunyanesque Mr. Howard instead chose a career in baseball, signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. At a time when many players were relatively slight — San Francisco Giants superstar Willie Mays was about 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 180 pounds — the bespectacled Mr. Howard stood out on the baseball field like a redwood tree.
In one of Mr. Howard’s first games with the Dodgers, he hit a foul ball that knocked out a teammate, Duke Snider, who was leading to third base. Mr. Howard was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1960, then seemed to fulfill his promise two years later, when he hit 31 home runs, with 119 RBIs and a .296 batting average.
In 1963, when he helped the Dodgers to a four-game sweep of the New York Yankees in the World Series, he hit what is called “the longest double in the 41-year history of the Yankee Stadium” against Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey. Ford.
Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek recalled the moment to the Miami Herald in 1991: “Howard hit a line drive right over my head. I jumped on it and missed it by about a foot, maybe two, at the top. There was a speaker at center left, 457 feet away. The ball hit the speaker and bounced like a ball…I don’t think it was more than 10 to 12 feet tall.
In the fourth and deciding game of the series, Mr. Howard launched a 450-foot home run against Ford to propel the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory.
“He was the only hitter,” Ford later said, “that ever scared me.”
After collapsing in 1964, Mr. Howard planned to retire at 28. An executive at a cardboard box manufacturing company in Green Bay, Wis., where Mr. Howard worked during the offseason, urged him to give baseball another chance.
“I think I’m a realistic guy,” Mr. Howard told Sports Illustrated at the time. “I have the talents of strength and leverage that God gave me. I realize that I can never be a great baseball player, because a great baseball player must be able to do five things well: run, field, throw, hit, and hit with power. I’m mediocre in four of them – but I can hit with power.
Before the 1965 season, he was traded to Washington and returned to form, winning the American League Comeback Player of the Year award. In seven years with the Senators, he built a reputation as one of baseball’s best sluggers and one of the city’s most beloved athletes in any sport.
In May 1968, during his third season in Washington, Mr. Howard enjoyed a streak of success unprecedented in baseball history. Over a six-game span, he hit 10 home runs and drove in 17 runs. A home run in Detroit “bounced off the 90-foot-high roof covering the upper deck and left the stadium,” wrote Post reporter George Minot Jr., who estimated the hit hit at least 550 feet.
During his streak, Mr. Howard told the Hartford Courant in 2001, “I thought someone was going to turn me around” — throw him — “very soon, because that’s part of our business.” I thought someone was going to put a part in my hair, but they didn’t, so I thought I’ll settle in and stay cool. It was a fun week. Man alive, you’d like to shoot like this for a few months.
As his legend grew, Mr. Howard acquired a multitude of towering nicknames, from Hondo to the Washington Monument to, perhaps most evocative, the Capital Punisher. Several pitchers and infielders recounted how they had jumped to catch liners hit hard by Mr. Howard’s bat – only to watch as they continued to climb to the outfield seats.
In the American League, attendance increased every time Mr. Howard and the hapless Senators came to town, as fans flocked to see how far he could hit the ball.
“No player can electrify a ballpark so much, simply by bringing his bat to home plate and assuming a stance that tells the pitcher he is ready,” wrote Post sports columnist Shirley Povich.
In 1968, known as “The Year of the Pitcher,” Mr. Howard hit 44 home runs, eight more than any other player in the game. Before the following season, he demanded a three-year contract worth $300,000 and refused to report to spring training.
He ultimately agreed to a one-year, $90,000-plus contract with new Senators owner Robert Short three weeks before the season began. When Ted Williams was named manager of the Senators in 1969, Mr. Howard changed his uniform number to 33 to allow Williams to wear the number 9 jersey he had made famous during his Hall of Fame career. fame with the Boston Red Sox.
Under Williams’ tutelage, Mr. Howard became a more complete hitter, drawing more walks than before, including a league-leading 132 in 1970. Williams was impressed by the work ethic and pure strength of Mr. Howard.
“This son of a gun is the biggest, hardest hitter that ever played the game, and that includes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg – all of them,” Williams said in 1969. “No one never played.” hit the ball harder and further, no one.
Mr. Howard hit a career-high 48 home runs in 1969, then led the league the following year with 44 home runs and 126 RBIs. But as the Senators continued to lose, Short announced in late 1971 that he would move the franchise to Arlington, Texas.
As jilted fans grew increasingly fractious, hanging short in effigy and displaying vulgar banners at the ballpark, Mr. Howard and his teammates played their final games in Washington. “I hate to leave,” he told the Post. “We’ve had a bunch of wanderers here in Washington in the seven years I’ve played, but I have to say we’ve always done our best. We had a team spirit that was hard to beat.
On September 30, 1971, the Senators played their last game. They were leading the Yankees in the ninth inning, 7-5, when unruly fans stormed the field and began picking up the bases and pieces of turf. The game was lost to the Yankees.
In the sixth inning of the game, Mr. Howard hit a home run – the last ever hit by a senator.
“This is what the fans came to see,” Minot wrote in The Post. “They rolled cheer after cheer onto his broad shoulders. He waved his batting helmet at them before disappearing into the dugout. Then he went out and threw his cap to the crowd. And he came out to blow kisses.
“It’s a utopia,” Mr Howard said after the match. “It’s the biggest thrill of my life. What could top it? »
Frank Oliver Howard was born August 8, 1936 in Columbus, Ohio. His father was a railway machinist, his mother a housewife.
Mr. Howard, who weighed more than 13 pounds at birth, was never a graceful athlete, but his size made him a highly recruited basketball player. At Ohio State, he averaged 20 points per game and was named to several All-America teams. He still holds the school record for most rebounds in a game, with 32.
But baseball was always his favorite sport, and he left college just before graduating to sign with the Dodgers in 1958 for a $100,000 bonus — plus an additional $8,000 for his parents to buy a House.
When the senators left Washington to become the Texas Rangers, Mr. Howard went with them, but his best days were over. He finished his career with the Detroit Tigers in 1973, having hit 382 home runs, including 237 as a Senator.
Despite a spectacular three-year peak from 1968 to 1970, where he hit more home runs than any other player, Mr. Howard failed to earn a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He spent years as a minor league manager, dispensing a kind of folk wisdom to his players.
“I remember the encouragement I needed when I was young,” he said in 1976. “I had no idea what I was doing until I was 30. As old Teddy Williams says, “You stupid hitters.” By the time you know what to do, you’re too old to do it.
Mr. Howard’s first marriage, to Carol Johanski, ended in divorce. His second wife, Donna Scott, died in 2016 after 25 years of marriage. He later remarried Johanski. Besides his wife, survivors include six children from their marriage; a sister; 10 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Mr. Howard spent many years coaching with the Yankees, New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays and other teams and coached with the San Diego Padres in 1981 and the Mets in 1983.
In retirement, Mr. Howard lived in Aldie and was considered an elder statesman of baseball and a gifted storyteller. When the Washington Nationals played their first game at RFK Stadium in 2005, he received a huge ovation when he was introduced to the crowd. A statue…
2023-10-30 22:23:13
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