Frank Howard, Towering Slugger Whose Homers Were, Too, Dies at 87

Frank Howard, the Bunyanesque slugger who struck a few of baseball’s extra superior dwelling runs for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Senators whereas rolling up a prodigious strikeout complete as effectively, unable to overcome his penchant for chasing unhealthy balls, died on Monday in Aldie, Va. He was 87.

His dying, at a hospital, was attributable to issues of a stroke, his daughter Catherine Braun stated.

Listed at 6-foot-7 and 255 kilos — although effectively above that weight at occasions — Howard performed for 16 seasons within the main leagues and hit 382 homers. He twice led the American League in that class. Many of his dwelling runs — and even some hits that didn’t clear the fence — had been unforgettable.

As a Dodger in 1960, he hit a ball over the left-field wall at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh that was discovered alongside a parked automotive some 560 ft from dwelling plate.

Batting towards Whitey Ford in Game 1 of the 1963 World Series, on the authentic Yankee Stadium, he hit a drive that landed, in truthful territory, simply to the left of the monuments to Yankee greats in middle area, about 460 ft from dwelling plate. He lumbered solely so far as second base in what has been referred to as the longest double in Yankee Stadium historical past.

In Game 4, he hit a 450-foot homer off Ford into the left-field mezzanine at Dodger Stadium, in a 2-1 victory that accomplished a Dodger sweep of the Series.

Howard drove in 1,119 runs in his lengthy profession. But he additionally struck out 1,460 occasions.

A humble muscleman effectively preferred by teammates and pleasant to followers, Howard may snicker at his failings. He as soon as advised how the good hitter Ted Williams, who turned the Senators’ supervisor in 1969, helped him present extra persistence on the plate. Still, Williams couldn’t include his frustration.

“Somebody was explaining to a visitor that some of the outfield seats in R.F.K. Stadium had been painted white to mark where some of my long home runs had landed,” Howard advised The New York Times in 1981. “Ted turned to the guy and said, ‘All the green seats are for the times he struck out.’”

A basketball and baseball star at Ohio State University earlier than signing for a $108,000 bonus with the Dodgers in 1958 (nearly $1.2 million in as we speak’s forex), Howard turned referred to as Hondo, after Hondo Lane, the strapping cavalry scout performed by John Wayne within the 1953 Hollywood western “Hondo.” While taking part in for the Senators, he was referred to as the Capital Punisher.

Howard was the National League’s rookie of the yr in 1960, when he hit 23 dwelling runs for the Dodgers after taking part in briefly for them within the two earlier seasons.

His greatest years got here with the Senators, who obtained him in a multiplayer commerce earlier than the 1965 season. He hit an American League-leading 44 dwelling runs in 1968, buoyed by a spree in May when he walloped 10 in a stretch of six video games.

“The right type of power pitchers were going against me,” he stated in remembering that home-run barrage for the web site of the Nationals, Washington’s third main league franchise within the fashionable period. “My balance at the plate was good. I was seeing the ball well. I wasn’t committing too early into the pitch.”

Howard hit a career-high 48 dwelling runs in 1969 and the subsequent yr led the A.L. in homers, with 44, and runs batted in, with 126.

He was an All-Star for 4 consecutive seasons as a Senator, largely with shedding groups. On Sept. 30, 1971, he hit the Senators’ final dwelling run at R.F.Okay. Stadium earlier than the workforce left Washington and have become the Texas Rangers.

But he wasn’t an entire participant. Although he wore glasses, his fielding, largely as an outfielder and typically at first base, was lackluster. He couldn’t shake his strikeout woes. His profession batting common was solely .273.

Frank Oliver Howard was born on Aug. 8, 1936, in Columbus, Ohio. His father, John, was a machinist. His mom, Erma (Denny) Howard, was a homemaker. Frank was an All-American basketball participant at Ohio State as a junior within the 1956-57 season, when he averaged 20.1 factors a sport.

He was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors of the N.B.A. however shunned professional basketball.

Howard hit 123 dwelling runs for the Dodgers, however they determined he was dispensable after the 1964 season, by which his batting common declined by practically 50 factors, to .226, and his 24 homers represented a drop for a second straight yr.

Concerned that two of their beginning pitchers, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Podres, may not recuperate from arm illnesses, the Dodgers despatched Howard to the Senators in a multiplayer deal that introduced them Claude Osteen, who had received 15 video games for a Washington workforce that completed in ninth place. (That Washington ball membership was created in 1961 as an enlargement workforce when the earlier Senators left for Minnesota to turn out to be the Twins.)

After his time in Washington and Texas, Howard was despatched to the Detroit Tigers in the course of the 1972 season. He retired after the 1973 season. He managed the San Diego Padres within the strike-shortened 1981 break up season and the Mets in 1983, succeeding George Bamberger through the season. Both groups completed final. He was additionally a coach for a number of groups, together with the Mets and the Yankees.

In 2009, the Nationals erected three statues at their ballpark, representing a timeline of baseball in Washington. Howard was honored together with Walter Johnson, the good pitcher from the early many years of the twentieth century, and Josh Gibson, the star catcher of the Homestead Grays of the Negro leagues, who performed their dwelling video games in each Pittsburgh and Washington.

Howard married Carol Johanski in 1959. They divorced within the mid-Eighties. He and Donna (Scott) Howard had been married from 1990 till her dying in 2016. Just a few years in the past, Howard and his first spouse remarried.

In addition to his daughter Catherine, he’s survived by his spouse, together with their 5 different kids, Tim, Daniel, Mary and Mitch Howard and Rebecca Thomas; a sister, Grace Rocci; eight grandchildren; two step-grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and several other step-great-grandchildren. He lived in Aldie, west of Washington.

For all his lengthy dwelling runs, one in every of Howard’s most vicious drives, in a 1958 Dodger sport at Cincinnati, went solely 90 ft.

Duke Snider was the runner on third when Howard got here to the plate.

“I had my protective helmet on just in case he hit one at me, and he did,” Snider advised Sports Illustrated in 1964. “The ball glanced off the shoulder and hit below the bottom of my helmet. Blood started to flow out of my ear. They picked me up and I was dizzy for three, four, five days.”

As Snider advised it, from firsthand information, “Frank Howard has more raw power than anyone in baseball.”

Alex Traub contributed reporting.