Dick Howser, a Quiet Battler, Will Manage to Be Remembered

Jorge Orta was called safe at first base by Don Denkinger. George Brett crashed down the dugout steps, chasing a foul ball. Jack Clark dropped a foul pop-up by Steve Balboni, who went back to the batter’s box and singled. Joaquin Andujar bumped an ump, and John Tudor extended his hand to a fan. The 1985 World Series was over, and belonged to the Kansas City Royals. It was theirs.

And his.

Dick Howser did not want or expect any credit. Give it to the players, he said. “They fought the odds. They fought being behind. What else do they have to prove?”

Nothing, and neither does Dick Howser. Not anymore. He has fought the odds. He has fought being behind. And he will keep on fighting, even if he did, on Tuesday, surrender one of the great joys of his life. Just because he has given up managing a baseball team does not mean that Dick Howser has given up.

Quite the opposite. Anyone who has scrapped as Howser has, in the months since last summer’s surgery for a malignant brain tumor, can be called nothing less than a fighter. He has accepted his fate with courage, grace and humor, three more reasons why the get-well cards have been stacking up by the boxfuls in his room. Dick Howser is appreciated, and loved.

This is not to convey in any way that he is not with us anymore. The man is very much with us. We just will not see him on a ball field for a while, and possibly never again. The weight and hair loss will not be visible to us, day in and day out, as reminders of everything he has endured. From now on, Howser will carry his burden in private.

He walked away from public life Tuesday in Fort Myers, Fla., in full uniform. Howser, 50, had wanted to try running the Royals once more, even in a weakened condition, and not a soul was reluctant to let him try. To say that Richard Dalton Howser is well-liked and appreciated by his players is an understatement at best.

But when he made up his mind that the strain was too much, that he simply could not manage to manage, Howser did what was best for the team, turning his job over to a healthier man. The first thing he did thereafter was assemble the players and say: “I know you’re going to have some tough spots, but don’t let it get you down.”

They’re going to have some tough spots.

Howser intends to help the Royals in any way he can, even if it means putting on that now-baggy uniform once in a while and hitting a few fungoes, or doing a little scouting here and there. But no one wants him to push it. If work would help distract him from his troubles, he is welcome to work. If work would contribute to his troubles, he is invited to take a break.

Such thoughtfulness might be afforded anyone in Howser’s situation, but in this case it is done with particular concern and affection. As Brett said: “There is nothing we wouldn’t do for the man. He has been there for us since the first day he arrived. The least we can do is be there for him.”

The players do not think it corny at all that, in his last full season as manager, they delivered for him--and he for them--a World Series championship. There are, as Howser now knows better than anyone, more important things in the world than a World Series, but at least he experienced the thrill of one, the high point of a life’s work, before his chosen career was interrupted.

“I’d like to think that Dick will be back running this club someday, business as usual,” second baseman Frank White said. “But in case he doesn’t, I’m glad we came through for him when we did. God willing, we’ll win him another one before we’re through.”

Because of his unassuming manner, Howser was one of those guys often forgotten when discussions turned to managers, as in which ones got the most out of their teams. Howser ran the New York Yankees one full season and won 103 games. He managed the Royals for five full seasons, won the division title three times and finished second twice. Managing doesn’t get much better than that.

He wasn’t arrogant or crude or outspoken or even particularly colorful. He never put on an act. Howser just put on a uniform, did his job, and treated people as people. Stardom never interested Howser much, and there were times when the feeling came across that he would have been just as content coaching third base as managing, so long as he was doing his best.

“I’m eager to manage again, but not if I can’t do it right,” he said recently. “I only want to run the club if I can give it everything I have. If part of me can’t handle it, I know I won’t do a good job, in which case I’d rather not do it at all.”

It was less than three months ago that Howser was in Los Angeles, having surgery for the second time, and since then his radiation treatments have continued. During this time he has turned to God, becoming a “born-again” Christian, and heaven knows he has had sufficient reason to do so. It isn’t easy getting through an ordeal like this one alone.

Once the baseball season begins in earnest, some will watch the Kansas City Royals and forget the man who once had managed them. But many will remember, and will say a little prayer during each seventh-inning stretch. Dick Howser need not worry about that, at least. He is not alone.