Frank Howard, whose towering 6-foot-7 presence as a slugging outfielder and first baseman was followed by a coaching career featuring stops in Queens and The Bronx, died Monday due to “complications from a stroke,” according to the Washington Post.
He was 87.
Howard’s MLB career began with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958, but after seven years, he was traded to the Washington Senators and became a fixture in the city’s baseball scene.
Following his retirement in 1973, Howard embarked on a coaching journey that featured a 116-game stint as Mets manager in 1983 and a stint as a Yankees coach, as well as stops with the Rays (as a coach) and the Padres (as manager in 1981).
“Growing up a baseball fan in Washington D.C., Frank Howard was my hero,” Mark Lerner, the Nationals’ owner, said in a statement, according to MLB.com. “The towering home runs he hit into the stands at RFK Stadium gave him the nickname ‘Capital Punisher,’ but I’ll always remember him as a kind and gentle man.
“The entire Lerner family would like to offer our thoughts and condolences to Frank’s family during this difficult time. The world of baseball has truly lost a giant.”
Howard — nicknamed Hondo — stayed on as a coach with the Mets in 1984 after he was replaced as manager by Davey Johnson and was back on the Mets bench from 1994-96.
He coached with the Yankees in 1989 and from 1991-93.
Howard’s most recognizable trait was his size, listed at 6-7, 255 pounds, but often heavier than that.
The NBA’s Philadelphia Warriors drafted him in the third round following a collegiate career — for both baseball and basketball — at Ohio State.
When the Yankees’ selected 6-7 Aaron Judge in 2013, Howard’s name was inserted back into baseball discourse.
Though Howard appeared in eight games for the Dodgers in 1958 and nine in 1959, he didn’t log his first full MLB season until 1960 — when he hit .268, launched 23 homers, drove in 77 runs and won Rookie of the Year.
Two years later, Howard helped Los Angeles win a World Series against the Yankees.
He also appeared in four All-Star Games with the Senators, finished his career with 382 homers — many of the majestic, tape-measure variety — and leading the American League in homers in 1968 and 1970, when he hit 44 homers in both seasons, sandwiched around 48 homers in 1969, one behind Harmon Killebrew.
Howard had a stretch of 20 at-bats in 1968 when he blasted 10 homers with the Senators.
Howard told MLB.com in 2018 that if he’d strung together more weeks like that “rare moment,” he might’ve “made a couple of bucks in the game of baseball.”
Before the team relocated, Howard’s homer in the final game of the 1971 season marked the last hit by a Senators player — something Howard called “utopia” at the time, according to the Washington Post.
He spent 1972 playing for the Rangers after the Senators moved to Texas, and later that season, at 36 years old, Howard was dealt to join the Tigers’ pennant race as a pinch hitter and occasional first baseman.
Howard’s first chance at managing came with the Padres in 1981, and two years later, Mets manager George Bamberger resigned after a woeful 46-game start to the season.
Howard, then the team’s first-base coach, took over. Bamberger claimed he “suffered enough.”
But it gave Howard another managing window, and the Mets finished 52-64 the rest of the season.
‘’A lot of people would say this is on an interim basis,’’ Howard said, according to a New York Times article from that year. ‘’But it doesn’t bother me. I don’t want any raise in salary or a hotel suite, or any of those things. I figure to be myself.’’
Howard was inducted into the Nationals’ Ring of Honor in 2016.
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