This comes up now solely because I recently read that Frank Howard only appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot one time… and he only got 6 votes!
I won’t waste time arguing that Frank Howard ABSOLUTELY should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I can certainly understand why many voters deemed him unworthy, and that’s no great cosmic injustice.
I’ll just say that I’m very surprised he got so LITTLE support. He seems like a very worthy contender (though not a slam dunk). Why did he get almost NO support at all?
People who supported Jim Rice often made the questionable claim that Rice was “the most feared hitter in the American League.” Well, if we take that kind of talk seriously, I can attest that Frank Howard was VERY much feared in his day! ! Frank Howard had the same number of career homers as Jim Rice. He also had a better on-base percentage than Rice and a better slugging percentage than Rice.
As I said, I can easily understand why Frank Howard never got 75% of the vote, but how did he get only 6 votes, period???
Again, I’m not saying Frank absolutely SHOULD be a Hall of Famer, nor am I even suggesting he’s the most deserving guy who’d been kept out. It just blows my mind that only SIX voters thought him worthy!