After nine consecutive seasons (1975-83) with Keith Hernandez as their Opening Day first baseman, the Cardinals had a most unlikely successor: Art Howe.
Though he’d been a productive infielder, mostly at second base and third for the Astros, Howe was unemployed at the start of 1984. He sat out the 1983 season because of elbow and ankle surgeries, then became a free agent and, at 37, hoped to show he still could play.
The 1984 White Sox, managed by Tony La Russa, brought him to spring training to compete for a utility role as an unsigned player, but a rookie, Tim Hulett, won the job.
The Cardinals, seeking a pinch-hitter, threw Howe a lifeline, signing him on March 21, 1984. Two weeks later, Howe was in the Cardinals’ Opening Day lineup as the first baseman, batting fifth, against the Dodgers when the player who was supposed to start, David Green, strained his shoulder.
Howe’s longshot leap from unemployment to Opening Day starter was not the first time he defied the odds. He’d been doing that his entire playing career.
Better late than never
Growing up near Pittsburgh, Howe was a Pirates fan. “He used to stand in front of the TV when the Pirates were on and pretend he was playing,” Howe’s father, Art Sr., recalled to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “He’d have his hat on and be holding a bat. He’d tell us that someday he’d play for the Pirates.”
The prediction came true, but the route Howe took hardly was routine.
A standout high school athlete, Howe accepted a football scholarship from the University of Wyoming because he’d also be allowed to play baseball. A quarterback, he hurt his back his freshman year and gave up football but stuck with baseball. Howe injured his thigh his senior season, underwent surgery and got no interest from big-league scouts.
He graduated from Wyoming with a degree in business administration in 1969, returned to Pittsburgh and became a computer programmer for Westinghouse.
“I worked with what we called the wire book,” Howe said to Dave Anderson of the New York Times. “We had to close all the books _ the money in, the money out. If anything was wrong, they’d call you in to stay until it proved. Stay all night if you had to. It was always the system analyst’s fault, never the input.”
Howe also had a disc operation for his ailing back in 1969. The next year, he played semipro baseball in the Greater Pittsburgh Federation League in his spare time. A friend arranged for him to attend a Pirates tryout camp. “I felt like a grandfather coming down there with all those 16- and 17-year-olds,” Howe recalled to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Pirates scout Merrill Hess, who ran the tryout, said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “He had some impressive credentials. The problem was he was considered too old and too slow to be a major-league prospect.”
The Pirates still offered him a contract. Howe, 24, married, and a father, gave up the $1,500-a-month job at Westinghouse for $500 a month to play for a Class A farm club in Salem, Va., in 1971.
“I just didn’t want to be one of those ex-jocks who sit around with his grandson on his knee and wonder if I could have played major league baseball,” Howe said to the Post-Gazette. “I had the chance to find out, and I wanted to take it.”
No quit
Howe was 27 when he got called up to the Pirates in July 1974 as a backup to third baseman Richie Hebner. Howe’s first two home runs in the majors came against the Phillies’ Steve Carlton and the Mets’ Tom Seaver.
(For his career, Howe batted .389 versus Seaver, with 14 hits, including three home runs. He also hit three homers against Vida Blue. His .618 on-base percentage versus Blue included 15 hits and six walks.)
After the 1975 season, the Pirates sent Howe to the Astros, completing a trade for infielder Tommy Helms.
Howe hoped to replace Doug Rader, who’d been traded to the Padres, as the 1976 Astros third baseman, but Enos Cabell won the job. Two months into the season, Howe, 29, was demoted to the minors. With his career at a crossroads, Howe hit .355 for the Memphis Blues and was brought back to the Astros in September.
For the next six seasons, Howe was an Astros regular at second (1977-79), first (1980) and third (1981-82).
In May 1980, a pitch from the Expos’ Scott Sanderson struck Howe in the face, fracturing his jaw. He was sidelined less than a week, playing with a wired jaw and a special protective helmet. Five months later, in a one-game playoff against the Dodgers to determine the 1980 West Division champion, Howe had four RBI in the Astros’ 7-1 victory.
He batted .296 in 1981 and produced a 23-game hitting streak.
During the winters, Howe managed teams in Puerto Rico, hoping the experience would prepare him for a baseball job after his playing days.
Howe’s playing career was in jeopardy when he had to miss the 1983 season. “I started to get a stabbing pain in my (right) elbow the middle of the 1982 season,” Howe told the Chicago Tribune. “The elbow got weaker and weaker, and I had surgery in December of that year.”
A second elbow operation was performed in May 1983. In both surgeries, nerve transfers were performed, the Tribune reported. Howe also had surgery on his left ankle in 1983 for a problem with the tendon sheath.
Cardinals come calling
Howe attended the 1983 baseball winter meetings, looking for a job. The Astros and Giants made offers, but he chose to try out at spring training with the 1984 White Sox because he figured he could compete for a role as backup to third baseman Vance Law and viewed the club as a title contender.
Though manager Tony La Russa was impressed with what he saw from Howe, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “He has made every throw he has had to make and showed a willingness to do whatever we ask,” Howe was informed he wouldn’t make the team.
That’s when the Cardinals stepped in. Their scout, Joe Frazier, tracked Howe in spring training and noted he moved and threw well, the Post-Dispatch reported.
The Cardinals had been talking to the Angels about acquiring Ron Jackson, who batted right-handed and played first and third. According to the Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals considered two proposals _ a straight swap of Bob Forsch for Jackson, and a three-way exchange in which St. Louis would send two prospects to the Dodgers for Burt Hooton, then flip Hooton to the Angels for Jackson.
Instead, when Howe became available, the Cardinals took him. Manager Whitey Herzog told the Post-Dispatch that Howe would be the club’s top pinch-hitter versus left-handers. “Howe is going to be better off the bench than (departed free agent) Gene Tenace was,” Cardinals pitcher Dave LaPoint told the newspaper.
When David Green’s ailing right shoulder made him unavailable to start at first base in the season opener against Dodgers left-hander Fernando Valenzuela, Howe replaced him.
Batting between George Hendrick and Willie McGee, Howe was not much of a factor in the Cardinals’ 11-7 victory. He grounded out in the second and hit into a double play in the third. When right-hander Pat Zachry replaced Valenzuela in the fourth, Dane Iorg batted for Howe and delivered a two-run single. Boxscore
Follow the leader
After that, Howe settled into the role Herzog had envisioned for him. He appeared in 89 games for the 1984 Cardinals, making 28 starts at third and three at first, and played all four infield positions.
Howe hit .318 as a pinch-hitter but .216 overall in 1984. A highlight came on July 14 when he had three RBI in the Cardinals’ 7-6 victory versus the Padres. Boxscore
After the season, the Cardinals signed Ron Jackson, who’d been released, but Howe beat him out for the utility infield job at 1985 spring training.
Then, three days before the season opener, the Cardinals acquired reserve infielder Ivan DeJesus from the Phillies. DeJesus could play third as well as short.
Howe, 38 and experiencing back problems, got three at-bats for the 1985 Cardinals, went hitless and was released on April 22. “Art kind of expected it,” Herzog said to the Post-Dispatch. “We hope to get him in our organization, maybe as a minor-league manager.”
Howe told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The Cardinals have offered me a job as a minor-league hitting instructor.”
A better offer came from Bobby Valentine, who replaced Doug Rader as Rangers manager in May 1985. Howe joined the Rangers’ coaching staff. “He came highly recommended by (his ex-Astros teammates) Nolan Ryan and Phil Garner,” Valentine told the Post-Gazette.
Howe went on to manage the Astros (1989-93), Athletics (1996-2002) and Mets (2003-04). He succeeded La Russa with the Athletics and Valentine with the Mets. With Howe, the Athletics had 102 wins in 2001 and 103 in 2002.
RetroSimba 
I’ve always really liked Art Howe and his laid-back demeanor and this made me like him even more. Great job.
Thanks, Gary. Sandy Alderson was the general manager who hired Howe for the A’s. Also in on the interviews to replace Tony La Russa were assistant general manager Billy Beane and Dave Stewart. Beane told the Oakland Tribune that the finalists were Howe and Jim Lefebvre and that Howe got the nod in a close call. In announcing Howe’s hiring, Alderson called him a “pillar of strength” and told the Tribune, “He had a real rock-solid presence about him.” Beane, who played for the winter ball team Howe managed in Puerto Rico, said to the Tribune, “There’s an underlying self-confidence that came through in the interviews.” After the 1998 season, when Beane was the general manager, there was speculation Howe would be fired, but players Jason Giambi and Matt Stairs met with Beane and gave a ringing endorsement of Howe. Beane then extended his contract.
Good story. Against all odds after everything the guy went through.
Thanks, Ken. Art Howe kept defying the odds in his managing days as well. When the Mets hired him in the fall of 2002, they took some heat for instead not getting Lou Piniella (who left the Mariners for the Rays) or Dusty Baker (who left the Giants for the Cubs), but Jason Giambi, then a Yankee, told Newsday that the Mets made the right choice in hiring Howe. “He’s very straightforward,” Giambi said. “He’s very honest. He has great communication. Like Joe (Torre), you’re not intimidated to go up and talk to him.”
You can never get tired reading a post about Art Howe. A dependable player who overcame obstacles and injuries. Also a great baseball mind and a gentleman. He’s also always been pretty candid about what he thinks about sabermetrics, analyitcs and advanced stats. Especially when it comes to a one size fits all approach to the extent that you eliminate the human element. I’m also glad he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind about the film Moneyball.
In a 2009 article for the New York Daily News, Steve Kettmann noted that the book “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis “famously made Howe out to be both a rube and a clown, a kind of latter-day Dudley Do-Right … but Lewis never once talked to Howe. He was perfectly happy to take Beane’s version of a given conversation and run with it, to the point of ludicrousness.”
Kettmann also wrote, “General managers in the Beane mold prefer to have malleable, easy-to-control managers … Art Howe was never that man.’
I always like watching Art whether he was playing or managing. I think he’s an honest, down-to-earth, “real” personality who should be quite proud of his baseball career. Excellent post, Mark.
Thanks, Bruce. I think you have Art Howe pegged well.
When Howe was playing in the Pirates’ system at Charleston, W.Va., he wanted his wife and kids to be with him for the season, so they did the best they could on a minor-league salary and resided in a trailer park, according to The Pittsburgh Press.
In describing Howe’s effort to reach the big leagues, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted, “The road to Pittsburgh, for Howe, was full of potholes. He clutched, scratched and gouged until his fingernails broke, then he clawed some more.”
Howe was the Astros manager who converted Craig Biggio from a catcher to a second baseman, launching him to a Hall of Fame career. Biggio said to Knight Ridder Newspapers, “I thought he was great. He was always fair to us.”
I love stories like this…the routes players take or are taken on to make it to the majors. I’m reminded of John Axford and him being seen working out at a gym somewhere in Ontario and then invited to spring training and making the Brewers team. But back to Howe, he must be a great guy for Herzog to want him as a minor league manager while he was still a player.
Yes, there seems to have been a mutual respect between Art Howe and Whitey Herzog. When the Cardinals acquired Howe, Herzog said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “He’s a good guy to have on the club.” Howe told the newspaper, “I’ve always prided myself on being a team player and forgetting about myself.”
Howe said he learned from watching Herzog manage a club. “After studying his style for a while, you could almost manage right along with him,” Howe told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “He was a master at running a game. He knew what everyone could do and he always managed three or four innings ahead. He knew every possible move the other team could make. I really got an education being around him.”
Around 2013 or so, I heard an interview with Art Howe on Bay Area radio. He was asked whether, in 1979, the Astros recognized Bruce Bochy as a future great manager. He began laughing uncontrollably and then said, “no, we didn’t.”
Good story! Art Howe and Bruce Bochy were Astros teammates from 1978-80 on teams managed by Bill Virdon. On July 20, 1978, in a game against the Mets at Shea Stadium, Howe hit two home runs (one each against Dwight Bernard and Kevin Kobel) and Bochy hit his first big-league home run (against Kobel): https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1978/B07202NYN1978.htm