 |
 |
Richard Dalton Howser
Cleveland Indians
Shortstop
Born: May 14, 1936, Miami, FL
Signed: Signed by the Kansas City Athletics as an amateur free agent before 1958 season
Major League Teams: Kansas City Athletics 1961-1963; Cleveland Indians 1963-1966; New York Yankees 1967-1968
As a Manager: New York Yankees 1978, 1980; Kansas City Royals 1981-1986
Died: June 17, 1987, Kansas City, MO (age 51)
Before he was a World Series winning manager with the Royals, Dick Howser was a scrappy shortstop who played eight big league seasons with the Athletics, Indians and Yankees. His best seasons came in his rookie year of 1961 when he was an All-Star and finished runner-up to Don Schwall (#362) in Rookie of the Year voting, and 1964 when he played 162 games and hit .256 with a career high 52 RBIs. Howser finished in the top ten for stolen bases in four different seasons. Over 789 career games, Howser hit .248 with 105 stolen bases.
Following his playing career, Howser assumed third base coaching duties for the Yankees between 1969 and 1978, winning his first World Series rings with the club in 1977 and 1978. After a season as the head baseball coach at his alma mater, Florida State, Howser returned to the Yankees as their manager in 1980 and guided them to the A.L. East pennant. He was fired by George Steinbrenner following the 1980 A.L.C.S. loss to the Royals, but he was then hired by the Royals to manage the second half of the 1981 season. In 1985, Howser guided the Royals to their first World Series title, overcoming 3-1 deficits in both the A.L.C.S. against the Blue Jays and the World Series against the heavily favored Cardinals. The last game Howser managed was the 1986 All-Star Game, as he was diagnosed with a brain tumor shortly thereafter. He passed away in June 1987, with the Royals posthumously retiring his #10 a few weeks following his death.Building the Set
August 21, 2020 from Charleston, SC - Card #149
In my largest (by volume) purchase to date, I spent an enjoyable hour or so in mid-August browsing the eBay store of seller mantlerulz and clicking Add to Cart on 30 different cards. We had previously added 29 cards to our set back in February from the Philly Show. The 30 cards, all commons, cost me $52 total (before shipping and taxes) with the cards ranging in prices from $1 to $6. I love this haul and I found the seller's store by accident when I was browsing eBay in an attempt to add a few more cheap cards from the set's first series. With the exception of this Howser card (which cost me $1) and manager Birdie Tebbets' (#301) card, along with the few former Phillies in the lot, most of the players featured on these cards are unknown to me. With this purchase, we've now passed the quarter mark for completion of the set. We still have a long way to go, and quite a few pricey cards to add, but any day I can add 30 commons in excellent shape and at very low prices is a great day.
The Card / Indians Team Set
That's uniform #18 partially visible on the back of Howser's sleeveless Indians jersey. The back of the card notes his Rookie of the Year victory in 1961. As mentioned above, he was second in the voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, but he won the award in the voting conducted by The Sporting News. The A's swapped him to the Indians on May 25, 1963 with Jose Azcue (#514) for Doc Edwards (#239) and $100,000 cash.
1965 Season
After appearing in 162 games in 1964, this was to be the final season in which Howser appeared in over 100 games. He was the Indians' opening day shortstop, but he ultimately lost the every day job to Larry Brown (#468). Howser started 69 games at short and 12 games at second base, hitting .235 with 17 stolen bases.
|
|
|
|
|
First Mainstream Card: 1961 Topps #416
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (16): 1961-1968, 1973, 1980, 1983-1987, 1990
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1990 Topps #661
73 - Howser non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 9/1/20.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database
Wikipedia
Previous Card: #91 Chicago Cubs Team Card
Next Card: #93 Jack Fisher - New York Mets
No comments:
Post a Comment