Frank Howard, a four-time All-Star who slugged 382 home runs during a lengthy major league career that included a World Series title with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1963, has died. He was 87 and died in Aldie, Virginia. Howard's death was announced by the Washington Nationals, the AP reports. At 6-foot-7 and 255 pounds, Howard was a massive, imposing figure as an outfielder and first baseman. "He was the ultimate teammate, always," said Dick Bosman, who played six-plus seasons with Howard with Washington and Texas and remained friends with him for decades. "Next to my dad, he's the greatest guy I know."
Howard played seven seasons with the Washington Senators after earning NL Rookie of the Year honors with the Dodgers in 1960 and helping them win the World Series. He was with the Senators when they relocated to Texas and became the Rangers and finished his playing career with the Detroit Tigers. "Growing up a baseball fan in Washington DC, Frank Howard was my hero," Nationals owner Mark Lerner said in a statement, recalling the homers Howard hit at RFK Stadium for the Senators. "But I'll always remember him as a kind and gentle man," he added. Howard hit the final home run for the Senators at RFK in 1971 and the first at Arlington Stadium in April 1972 after the team moved. The Rangers called Howard "a bigger than life personality" popular with teammates and fans.
Nicknamed "Hondo," Howard played 1,895 regular-season and three postseason games from 1958-73. He spent a brief time as a manager, with the San Diego Padres in 1981 and the New York Mets in 1983. Bosman said Howard taught his teammates "how to be big leaguers. He taught us how to carry ourselves when we were bad—and we were bad. And when we did win, he taught us how to carry ourselves when we won a few ballgames here and there. He was that example in word and deed all the time." Howard led the American League in home runs in 1968 and '70, sandwiched around his 48-homer season that remains the most in Washington baseball history. He drove in 1,119 runs and struck out 1,460 times.
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Howard's towering home runs often were unforgettable, per the New York Times. Playing for the Dodgers in Pittsburgh in 1960, he hit one over the left-field wall at Forbes Field that was found alongside a parked car about 560 feet from home plate. In the first game of the 1963 World Series, he hit a drive that landed, in fair territory, just to the left of the monuments to Yankees greats in center field at the original Yankee Stadium, about 460 feet from home plate. He made it only as far as second base, a hit that was called the longest double in stadium history. Howard was inducted into the Nationals' ring of honor in 2016. (More obituary stories.)
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