The 6-7 250 pound giant of the past, er, Dodger and Senator of the past, Frank Howard doesn't care what sluggers today take. He admires their power, period. The All-American in baseball and basketball at Ohio State likes sluggers.
Howard showed up in Green Bay, where he played his first professional baseball game 49 years ago. From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:
The stories about Frank Howard and his mammoth home runs have become legendary over the years.
Some are true and others have been stretched a bit, but none seem unbelievable for those who witnessed the strong swing of a 6-foot-7, 250-pound behemoth who smacked 382 homers in a 16-year career spent mostly with the Dodgers and Senators.
Howard is a man who's too humble — even at 70 and in his 49th year of baseball as a player, manager, coach and instructor — to talk about the tales passed on about him.
Like the one in which Howard, while playing for the Green Bay Bluejays in 1958 — a season in which he hit 37 home runs and had 119 RBIs — blasted a home run out of Joannes Park that cleared the East River.
And about those present-day hitters...the steroid bloated ones? Could they pull off a 1969 Frank Howard year of 48, 109, .296 without 'roids?
Hank Aaron is the greatest hitter he's seen and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle the greatest players, but Howard swears Mark McGwire hit the ball further and harder than anyone who's played the game, and Barry Bonds is as consistent as any of them.
"I've had people ask me about it," Howard said of the steroid issue. "It does not detract from the records these guys are setting today. How much does it help them? I don't know. But these guys are doing some marvelous things, and they have to be recognized for it."
Put Frank Howard into the 'it takes more than steroids to hit a home run' camp, then.
Howard was recognized for his accomplishments on Sunday in his long-awaited return to Green Bay after moving from the area in the late 1980s. He lives in Virginia and has served as a special instructor with the New York Yankees since 2000, but Green Bay holds a special place in his heart.
"All my people are gone now," he said. "But I tell you, it's a great area."
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