Ralph Houk
Ralph Houk | |
---|---|
Catcher / Manager | |
Born: Lawrence, Kansas, U.S. | August 9, 1919|
Died: July 21, 2010 Winter Haven, Florida, U.S. | (aged 90)|
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
MLB debut | |
April 26, 1947, for the New York Yankees | |
Last MLB appearance | |
May 1, 1954, for the New York Yankees | |
MLB statistics | |
Batting average | .272 |
Hits | 43 |
Runs batted in | 20 |
Managerial record | 1,619–1,531 |
Winning % | .514 |
Teams | |
As player As manager | |
Career highlights and awards | |
Ralph George Houk (/ˈhaʊk/; August 9, 1919 – July 21, 2010), nicknamed "the Major", was an American catcher, coach, manager, and front office executive in Major League Baseball. He is best known as the successor of Casey Stengel as manager of the New York Yankees from 1961 to 1963, when his teams won three consecutive American League pennants and the 1961 and 1962 World Series championships. In 1961 he became the second rookie manager to win 100 games in a season and third rookie manager to win a World Series.[1] He was the first manager to win World Series titles in his first two seasons and the first manager since Hughie Jennings to win three pennants in his first three seasons.
Playing career
A native of
Returning to baseball after the war, Houk eventually reached the major leagues, serving as the Yankees' second- and third-string catcher behind
), batting .500.Coaching career
During his last five years as a major-league player (1950–1954), Houk played in only 31 regular-season games, made 30 total
In 1955 he was named manager of the Yanks'
A player's manager
Houk was known as a "player's manager"—albeit one with a quick temper. Future Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda briefly played for Houk at Denver and called Houk the best handler of men he ever played for, and modeled his managerial style on him.[6] The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, of which Houk is a member, describes Houk as "rough, blunt and decisive" and his tantrums in arguments with umpires earned him 45 ejections as a manager in the majors. Houk is tied with Billy Martin for fourteenth place on baseball's "most ejected" list.[7]
The early 1960s Yankees responded to Houk's leadership; the 1961 team led by Roger Maris (61 home runs), Mickey Mantle (54 homers) and Whitey Ford (25 victories) won 109 games and beat the Cincinnati Reds in five games in the World Series. His 1962 club won 96 games, and were victorious over the San Francisco Giants in seven games in the Fall Classic. In 1963, the Yanks won 104 games and rolled to the pennant, but were swept in four games by the Dodgers in the Series.
Not all players found him to be a steller players' manager, though. He was featured a handful of times in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four, as Bouton was reminiscing about his time with the Yankees in 1969. Houk was described in one instance as "sometimes...99 percent pure bullshit."[8]
In the Yankees front office
Houk moved into the Yankees' front office as
To succeed Berra, he then hired
Back to the bench
Second term with Yankees
Houk (eventually succeeded as general manager by Lee MacPhail) thus began a second, and far less successful, term as Yankee manager, finishing the 1966 season. Their talent and farm system both depleted, the Yankees finished in last place for the first time since 1912. A long rebuilding process followed, including Bobby Richardson's retirement (Richardson's roommate, Tony Kubek, had retired because a bad back after the 1965 season) and the trading away of Maris, Clete Boyer and, during the 1967 season, Elston Howard. Houk continued to manage the Yankees from 1967 until 1973. His best season was 1970, when the Yanks won 93 games, but finished 15 games behind the eventual World Series champion Baltimore Orioles.
Despite two years left on a three‐year contract, Houk announced his resignation immediately after a season-ending 8–5 loss to the Detroit Tigers on September 30, 1973, in the final game at Yankee Stadium prior to its closure for a two-year renovation.[12] While first-year team owner George Steinbrenner's commanding style has led some to think the new owner influenced Houk's departure, he told Bill Madden of the New York Daily News it was the constant booing of Yankee fans that pushed him. Houk even said that Steinbrenner insisted he'd get some new players to restore the team's greatness. "And he did, bringing in Catfish and Reggie, " Houk told Madden in Pride of October. "That'll make you good in a hurry!" Apart from a brief stint with the Tigers' Class B affiliate in Augusta, Georgia, he had spent the first 35 years of his adult life on the Yankees' payroll.
Detroit Tigers
Houk signed a three-year, $225,000 contract to join the Tigers in a similar capacity just less than two weeks later, on October 11. He succeeded former Yankees teammate Billy Martin, who had been fired on September 2 and Joe Schultz, who served in the interim for the remainder of the 1973 season.
Aware of the challenge he was going to face, he stated, "I'm more concerned with winning than rebuilding, but we have to rebuild, there's no doubt about it."
The low point came in 1975, when Houk's team lost 102 games -- at the time the second-most losses in a season in franchise history -- but the 1976 Tigers improved their record by 14 games behind the heroics of rookie pitcher Mark Fidrych, who won 19 games while becoming a national sensation. By 1978, Houk had restored Detroit to respectability and the Tigers won 86 games -- their first winning season since 1973, and the first of 10 consecutive winning seasons -- with future stars of the Sparky Anderson-led 1980s Tigers such as Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris.
After the 1978 season, with the roster's average age a youthful 26.3,[15] Houk retired from baseball.
Boston Red Sox
Houk's name had been linked by the media with the Boston Red Sox' managerial job since his days as a Yankees' coach. After two years of retirement, in the autumn of 1980, Houk, then 61, was ready to get back into baseball. In late October, when the Red Sox called about their opening after they had fired Don Zimmer, he jumped at the chance.
Although not as daunting as his Detroit assignment, Houk faced another rebuilding job: the powerful Boston team of the 1970s was about to lose marquee players such as Carlton Fisk and Fred Lynn and needed to retool its roster. But Houk rose to the challenge, and in four seasons produced three over-.500 teams. On his watch, Boston broke in young players Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Bruce Hurst and Marty Barrett. When Houk retired from managing permanently in October 1984, just after his 65th birthday, he bequeathed the core of another pennant winning ballclub (in this case, the 1986 Red Sox) to his successor, John McNamara.
His final record, over 20 years with the Yankees (1961–1963, 1966–1973), Tigers (1974–1978) and Red Sox (1981–1984) was 1,619 wins and 1,531 losses (.514), plus eight wins and eight losses in the World Series. In twenty seasons as manager, he had eleven winning seasons, with six finishes of third or better and five seasons with a finish of sixth or worse. After his first three championship seasons, he never appeared in the postseason.[16]
Late career
Houk served with the Minnesota Twins as a special assistant to general manager Andy MacPhail, Lee's son, from 1987 to 1989 before retiring from the game for good.[9] He thus enjoyed one additional world championship season, when the Twins defeated the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.
Colorful opinions about Houk can be found in Jim Bouton's classic 1970 memoir, Ball Four. Houk was Bouton's first big league manager and sparred with him over contracts when Houk was the Yankees' GM.
Houk was portrayed by Bruce McGill in the 2001 film 61*.
He died on July 21, 2010, in Winter Haven, Florida, just nineteen days before he would have turned 91. At age 90 he was, at the time, the oldest living manager of a World Series-winning, pennant-winning or post-season team. He was survived by a daughter, Donna; a son, Robert; four grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
On July 22, 2010, the Yankees announced players and coaches would wear a black armband in Houk's memory on the left sleeve of their home and away uniforms for the remainder of the 2010 season.[17]
Managerial record
Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
NYY | 1961 | 162 | 109 | 53 | .673 | 1st in AL | 4 | 1 | .800 | Won World Series (CIN) |
NYY | 1962 | 162 | 96 | 66 | .593 | 1st in AL | 4 | 3 | .571 | Won World Series (SF) |
NYY | 1963 | 161 | 104 | 57 | .646 | 1st in AL | 0 | 4 | .000 | Lost World Series (LAD) |
NYY | 1966 | 139 | 66 | 73 | .475 | 10th in AL | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1967 | 162 | 72 | 90 | .444 | 9th in AL | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1968 | 162 | 83 | 79 | .512 | 5th in AL | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1969 | 161 | 80 | 81 | .497 | 5th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1970 | 162 | 93 | 69 | .574 | 2nd in AL East | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1971 | 162 | 82 | 80 | .506 | 4th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1972 | 155 | 79 | 76 | .510 | 4th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
NYY | 1973 | 162 | 80 | 82 | .494 | 4th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
NYY total | 1750 | 944 | 806 | .539 | 8 | 8 | .500 | |||
DET | 1974 | 162 | 72 | 90 | .444 | 6th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
DET | 1975 | 159 | 57 | 102 | .358 | 6th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
DET | 1976 | 161 | 74 | 87 | .460 | 5th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
DET | 1977 | 162 | 74 | 88 | .457 | 4th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
DET | 1978 | 162 | 86 | 76 | .531 | 5th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
DET total | 806 | 363 | 443 | .450 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
BOS | 1981 | 56 | 30 | 26 | .536 | 5th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
52 | 29 | 23 | .558 | 2nd in AL East | ||||||
BOS | 1982 | 162 | 89 | 73 | .549 | 3rd in AL East | – | – | – | – |
BOS | 1983 | 162 | 78 | 84 | .481 | 6th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
BOS | 1984 | 162 | 86 | 76 | .531 | 4th in AL East | – | – | – | – |
BOS total | 594 | 312 | 282 | .525 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
Total[16] | 3150 | 1619 | 1531 | .514 | 8 | 8 | .500 |
See also
References
- ^ "Rookie managers who won the World Series". MLB.com.
- ^ "Baseball in Wartime - Ralph Houk".
- ^ Anderson, Dave (July 25, 2010). "Lucky to Be Yankee and Lucky to Be Alive". New York Times.
- Goldstein, Richard (July 22, 2010). "Ralph Houk, Yankees Manager, Dies at 90". New York Times.
- ^ Retrosheet
- ISBN 9780618653874.
- ^ Stark, Jayson (June 14, 2007). "Cox's favorite tune: Take me out of the ballgame!". ESPN.com.
- ISBN 1-58261-310-9.
- ^ a b "Ralph Houk (front office history)—Baseball America Executive Database".
- ^ Reichler, Joe (February 28, 1965). "Notes: His biggest mistake was Yogi, Houk says". The Tuscaloosa News. Associated Press. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
- ^ Halberstam, David (1994). October 1964. New York: Random House.
- ^ Goldaper, Sam. "Houk Out As Yanks' Manager," The New York Times, Monday, October 1, 1973. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
- ^ Chass, Murray. "Tigers Get Houk As Pilot," The New York Times, Friday, October 12, 1973. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
- ^ Baseball Reference
- ^ Baseball Reference
- ^ a b "Ralph Houk". Baseball Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
- ^ Craig, Marc (July 22, 2010). "Yankees plan to honor late manager Ralph Houk". Newark Star-Ledger. Archived from the original on July 27, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-23.
External links
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors)
- Ralph Houk managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
- Ralph Houk at Find a Grave