Today we go and revisit a blog post from almost eight years ago, my TWO nickname cards for Frank Howard, so good he needed more than one nickname:
"The Capital Punisher" or "Hondo", take your pick!
Here's the original write-up for the post, which first appeared here on February 18th of 2015:
I used the 1970 template since Howard was just mashing the ball at the turn of the new decade.
Between 1968 and 1970 he'd top 40+ home runs each year (becoming the
last player to do so until Jay Buhner came along during the 1995-1997
seasons).
Howard led the American League in 1968 and 1970 with 44 taters, but
fell one short of the league lead with 48 in 1969 thanks to another
masher, Harmon Killebrew and his 49 blasts.
Howard was also one of the first players to top 30 home runs in
both leagues, as he hit 31 home runs for the Los Angeles Dodgers in
1962.
A National League Rookie of the Year in 1960, he'd finish in the
top-10 for an M.V.P. Award four times during his 16-year career.
The man was a flat-out beast at the plate, hitting 382 home runs in only 6488 at-bats!
He also topped 100 runs batted in four times, leading the league
once, and also topped a .500 slugging percentage seven times during the
modern "dead-ball" era, leading the league once in that category as
well.
He finally retired after the 1973 season, which saw him play in 85 games for the Detroit Tigers.
Now I'm not saying he's a Hall of Fame player, but I was surprised
to see that he only garnered 1.4% of the vote when he became eligible in
1979, thus getting dropped immediately.
