Good day everyone.
Today we revisit a post
from 2014, my "missing" 1976 card for Art Howe, part of the "1976
Project" I worked on with my buddy Jim:
Here's the original written post as well:
Here's a "missing" card I created for one of the blog readers here.
As a matter of fact I've happily taken on a project for him, creating
numerous 1976 cards of players who were either omitted from the set for
some reason, or were portrayed on the wrong
team.
This also helps ME create more 1976 Topps cards, as it is easily my favorite all-time set! So it's "win-win"!
So moving forward, for this series, which will also appear on this
blog as I create these cards, I will add the "1976 Project" in the
title, as some of the cards don't necessarily fit into any of my
subject-threads.
The future Major League manager actually played in 63 games for the
Pirates in 1975, gathering 162 plate appearances, so really he should
have had a card.
He hit .171 for the year, with nine doubles and a homer along with 10 runs batted in and 13 runs scored.
His 11-year career as a player would really hit it's stride after
joining the Houston Astros, as he'd play pretty much full-time between
1977 and 1982 before a couple of part-time years in St. Louis in 1984
and 1985 (he didn't play Major League ball in
1983).
As you all know, he'd really find his niche on the Major League
level as a manager, guiding the Astros, Oakland A's and New York Mets
between 1989 and 2004.
His real success was leading the young studs in Oakland in the
late-90's/early-00's, winning 100-games in two seasons (2001 and 2002),
but never being able to get past the N.Y. Yankees (remember the
now-famous "Jeter-Flip"?).
All told, Howe would win 1129 games as a manager in the Big
Leagues, finishing 2nd in "Manager of the Year" voting four years in a
row from 1999-2002.
