Thomas Sylvester Howard (born December 11, 1964) is an American former

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...

. He played 11 seasons in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) from 1990 to 2000 for the

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive Fi ...

, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros,

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

, and

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

. On April 11, 2000, he hit the first

grand slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

Minute Maid Park Minute Maid Park is a retractable roof stadium in Houston, Texas, United States. It opened in 2000 as the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Houston Astros. It has a seating capacity of 41,168, which includes 5,197 club seats and 63 ...

."Thomas Howard Statistics and History"
"baseball-reference.com. Retrieved June 8, 2017. He played three sports at Valley View High School in

Germantown, Ohio Germantown is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,547 at the 2010 census. A part of the Dayton metropolitan area, Germantown was founded by German Americans from Pennsylvania and was once home to a cigar i ...

. After high school, he played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional p ...

and college football as a backup

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for Ball State. He was named the inaugural

Mid-American Conference Baseball Player of the Year The Mid-American Conference Baseball Player of the Year is an annual award given to the Mid-American Conference's most outstanding baseball player. The award was first given after the 1986 season. , Ohio Bobcats baseball, Ohio's Rudy Rott is the ...

in 1986 after leading the conference with a .448

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

and 23

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s. He would go on to be inducted into the Ball State athletics hall of fame in 1996. He became the first Ball State athlete ever selected in the first round of a major sports draft when the Padres took him with the 11th overall pick in the 1986 Major League Baseball Draft. At the end of a May 2000 game Howard hit what Alex Kirshner at

FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', sometimes rendered as ''538'', is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in th ...

has calculated to be the home run most insulting to the other team in major-league history where statistics, including

pitch count In baseball statistics, pitch count is the number of pitches thrown by a pitcher in a game. Pitch counts are especially a concern for young pitchers, pitchers recovering from injury, or pitchers who have a history of injuries. The pitcher wants ...

s for each at-bat, are available. In the top of the ninth, playing for the visiting

as they were leading the Pittsburgh Pirates 15-3, Howard came to the plate against Keith Osik, a Pirates catcher pitching in order to end the game quickly and give the team's bullpen some rest, a move commonly interpreted as conceding the game. With the count 3-0, Howard swung at Osik's next pitch, a violation of baseball's unwritten rules in that situation, and hit it into the stands. Kirshner found the combination of the run differential in the game's last inning, the Cardinals being the visiting team, and the home run coming off a position player on a 3-0 count to have made for the severest possible disrespect to the Pirates, yet unlike a similar home run hit by Yermin Mercedes in 2021 there appeared to have been not only no criticism of Howard, but no mention of it in news coverage of the game. In 1015 Major League games over 11 seasons, Howard posted a .264 batting average (655-for-2483) with 297 runs, 123 doubles, 22 triples, 44 home runs, 264 RBI, 66 stolen bases, 165 bases on balls, .311 on-base percentage and .384 slugging percentage. He finished his career with a .986 fielding percentage playing at all three outfield positions. In nine postseason games, he hit .158 (3-for-19) with one RBI. , Howard lived in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, had five children and worked in the health and fitness industry.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Thomas 1964 births Living people Major League Baseball outfielders African-American baseball players Ball State Cardinals baseball players Ball State Cardinals football players San Diego Padres players Cleveland Indians players Cincinnati Reds players Houston Astros players Los Angeles Dodgers players St. Louis Cardinals players Major League Baseball left fielders Major League Baseball center fielders Major League Baseball right fielders Reno Padres players Spokane Indians players Wichita Pilots players Las Vegas Stars (baseball) players Chattanooga Lookouts players Indianapolis Indians players Memphis Redbirds players Nashville Sounds players Camden Riversharks players Baseball players from Ohio All-American college baseball players People from Middletown, Ohio 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople