Being a die-hard Washington Senators fan, I naturally loathed the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles were everything the Senators wern't; winners. It seemed almost every year the Orioles were in the World Series while The Nats languished in last place (except for that magical, Ted Williams led 86-76 season in 1969)
I usually attended the Oriole-Senators games at RFK. We usually lost 8-3 or 12-4, but that was OK, because I got to watch Frank Howard, the "Gentle Giant."
Frank Howard hit everyone well, but he owned Oriole southpaw Dave McNally. McNally would win 20 games every year, have an ERA around 2.50, and always gave up several long homers to Hondo every year. Interestingly, it always seemed that every homer Howard hit off McNally always bounced off the tarp that served as the roof for the bull pen in left center field. Hondo didn't hit those 'mammoth shots' that Bonds and McGwire have made famous; they were screaming line drives that typically cleared the fence by only a few feet, but would have gone forever had the back of the stadium wall stopped it.
I was devastated when the Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth. It was bad enough that they moved, but to the hometown of our arch-rival football team, the Redskins?
I have many fond memories of the Senators and Frank Howard. I hope he is in someway part of the new Washington baseball club.
» After a thirty year career in sales and sales management, Farid Rushdi is a Junior at Idaho State University, studying to be a high school history teacher
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Posted February 17, 2005.
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