Sunday Night Baseball: 1960 Topps #132 Frank Howard (RC)

Night Owl Cards posted this card on Twitter this week to mark Frank Howard's Birthday (August 8th, 77th birthday). Tonight we are honoring the same card as the Dodgers host the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday Night Baseball.

1960 Topps #132 Frank Howard

The Sport Magazine 1960 Topps Rookie Star subset runs from card numbers #117-148. This is the 2nd time that Topps and Sport were on-card partners. The 1958 Topps All-Stars subset is a Sport Magazine collaboration. In 1959 Topps switched allegiances to the Sporting News for both the All-Stars subset and the Rookie Stars subset   

 Despite the muted orange background that dominates this sets presentation, I view the design as a winner. The confluence of the patriotic ribbon, bullseyed profile pic, and magazine cred combine to put this subset into the Win column.

And I must also note that Frank Howard wearing his cap slightly askew adds just a touch of cool to the head shot. 

2006 Topps Archives Reserve #34

Topps is apparently quite fond of the card as well.  They saluted the card by making a chromey reprint part of their 2006 Topps Archives Reserve set. 

1960 was a good year for Frank Howard who won the NL Rookie of the Year award over two Phillies (Pancho Herrera, Art Mahaffey) and future Hall of Famer Ron Santo. Howard tallied 23 Home Runs with 77 RBIs during his rookie campaign.  He would remain a power hitter throughout his career, leading the league in homers twice (1968, 1970) with the Washington Senators. 

Frank Howard spent 7 years in the Dodgers organization before being traded to the Senators following the 1964 season.  Along with his rookie of the year campaign the highlight of Frank Howard's Dodger career is their sweep of the Yankees in the 1963 World Series. Howard homered off of Whitey Ford in the final game of the series.


Howard stayed in baseball for a number of years after his career ended and I can recall seeing him as a coach with the Mets in the 1990s.  Despite being out of the game for 20-30 years he still dwarfed many of that eras current players (Baseball-ref lists Howard at 6'7", 255 lbs).

The last time I saw Frank Howard was at the final Washington Nationals game at RFK.  

2007 09 23 Frank Howard and Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals final game at RFK

This photo was a bit too blurry to make the cut as a Phungo card, and doesn't really show Frank Howard's commanding size, but I assure you that day he was a presence.


Sources
Vintage Baseball Cards  
Baseball-ref.com   
Night Owl Cards

Go Nats!

2007 Fleer #7 Ryan Zimmerman
2007 Allen & Ginter #3 Austin Kearns
2008 Topps (ser 2) #562 Ronnie Belliard (Gold 282/2008)

What a difference a weekend makes? This has been the Phils entire season. one week they are on life support the next they are right in there with the leaders. The Mets, Brewers, Phillies and now Houston are all incomplete teams and this is keeping one of them from running away with this race.

This all brings us to today's cards. What do the Nats have to do with this playoff chase. Well tonight they host the Mets for the first of four games. If John Lannan does well on the mound tonight, I may partially forgive him for break Utley's hand with an inside pitch last year.

Go Nats!

Plus - Sweeping a critical series late in the year.

Minus - The final game of the sweep was not televised locally because of ESPN's exclusive rights to Sunday Night. ESPN carried the Chisox - Tigers game.

Shenanigans - Astros really get the short end of the stick playing in Milwaukee during hurricane Ike. Not only do the Astros lose the home games, but they end up playing in Milwaukee, which can look like a Cubs home game even when they are playing the Brewers.

But hey the Cubs faitful who made the trek up to Milwaukee were sure rewarded getting to witnees Carlos Zambrano toss that no-hitter. Out of curiosity was that game even on broadcast TV in Chicago - or were they blacked out like us in Philadelphia? The only Highlights I have seen were off the Astros network.

BlogBlogBlog - Fielder's Choice has a fine report on a recent trip to Fenway Park. Also the Nennth Inning has a report on a trip to PetCo and some succesfful autograph hunting.