Bright Star alum Bobby Howard inducted into Fastpitch HOF in 2015

By Tim Emmons
temmons@casscountynow.com

Bobby Howard has just about seen it all.
From his days of chopping trees in the woods of Bright Star; to batting against pitchers who could hit 104 mph or higher in most cases while playing in the Pacific Northwest fastpitch softball league.
Howard was enshrined in the 2015 Fastpitch Hall of Fame last May after cementing his legacy during a 10-year stretch that made him a fastpitch softball star.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Baseball-Softball Oldtimers invited Howard and his family to their banquet in May of 2015 where he was inducted into the “hallowed hall”.
The road to the “hall” began after Howard graduated from Bright Star High School in 1969 and attended college at Texarkana College.
After moving to South Sound in Washington State, Howard played for McChord Air Force Base and the Tacoma Merchants from 1970-1974.
From 1975 through 1980 he played for an array of teams including, Cloverleaf Tavern, Manke & Sons Lumber, B&I Sports and Colonial Cedar in the Puget Sound Fastpitch League at Peck Field in Tacoma.
The McChord AFB team played in the Puget Sound Fastpitch “A” League with teams from Tacoma, Olympia, Lacey, Bremerton, Shelton, Port Angeles and Puyallup.
McChord played two-league double hitters early in the week and played in tournaments on the weekend all over the northwest portion of the United States and even in Canada.
McChord was also one of 11 MAC (Military Airlift Command) Air Force bases in the U.S.A. and each MAC base had a traveling team in which McChord played all of the MAC teams.
In 1973 McChord won the MAC Air Force Tournament in Dover, Del., behind Howard’s incredible stat line.
Howard finished the tournament with the most hits (19), runs scored (14), homeruns (3) and stolen bases (16).
McChord ended up playing 159 games in 1973.
After 1973 the Air Force stopped all base teams from traveling to other bases to play any type of sports.
From 1974-1980 Howard played on different teams in the Puget Sound League.
In 1975 Howard played for Cloverleaf Tavern which was the best “A” team in the Tacoma area at that time. Cloverleaf finished second in the PSL and won the Metro Tournament for a bid to play in the regional at Great Falls, Mont.
At the 32-team regional event Cloverleaf was pitted against Portland, Ore., in the championship game.
It would prove to be a nail-biter for both teams and anyone in attendance.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, and with the score knotted at 0-0, Howard steps to the plate already having hit two doubles which accounted for two of the four hits in the game to that point. With two outs Howard walked on four straight pitches and then stole second on the first pitch to the next batter.
Howard’s evident fearless-style base running must have rattled the pitcher.
Howard takes off for third as the pitcher enters the windup and the ball hits the dirt and pops away from the catcher some 15 feet behind the dish.
Howard rounds third with scoring in mind as his lead to home plate is greater than that of the catcher retrieving the ball.
As the throw comes in from the catcher, Howard slides in safe and gives his team a 1-0 win.
Cloverleaf’s first baseman, 39-year old Ken Stancato who was the vice-president and head controller of Weyerhaeuser, asked Howard if everybody in Texas plays ball the way he does.
From 1976 to 1980 Howard played in the Northwest Major “AA” Fastpitch League for Manke Lumber and B&I Sports.
Balls & Strikes ASA (Amateur Softball Association) magazine out of Oklahoma City wrote an article in 1979 that the best fastpitch softball in the world is played in the Pacific Northwest Major “AA” Fastpitch League.
With teams from Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Yakima, Longview, Wash., Portland, Ore., and Victoria, British Columbia in Canada.
The league boasted pitchers from New Zealand, Mexico, Canada and the U.S.A.
Pitchers like Ty Stofflet, who in 1979 at 37 years old was clocked at 104.7 miles per hour. Sports Illustrated featured an 11-page article on Stofflet in May of 1980 titled “This guy can rise it, drop it and pop it at 104 mph”. The New York Times featured an article declaring him the “fastest pitcher in America” on August 11, 1985. No matter the pitcher set before him, Howard stepped to the plate fearless and turned in unforgettable performances in most of his games. Howard racked up hits in each game against the flame-throwing Stofflet.
Stanley Kern was a dominant pitcher who played for Budget Rental in Victoria, B.C., and had his name etched into the Guinness Book of World Records after he pitched a ball clocked at 119 mph.
Howard’s team beat Kern’s team regularly; sometimes by the run-rule.
In 1979 Eddie Feigner (The King and his Court) visited Seattle and played Howard’s team. In the second inning Howard’s team was up 26-0 so the supposed king and his team quit playing.
Feigner was dubbed “the greatest softball pitcher who ever lived.”
The King and His Court played more than 10,000 softball games in a 100 countries beginning in the late 1940s and achieved widespread fame similar to that of the Harlem Globetrotters. Feigner’s meticulous records claim 9,743 victories, 141,517 strikeouts, 930 no-hitters and 238 perfect games.
On February 18, 1967, Feigner appeared in a celebrity charity softball game against many Major League Baseball players.
In the game Feigner struck out Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Maury Wills and Harmon Killebrew all in a row.
Again, no one intimidated Howard no matter what moniker was attached to them. Able to move around the diamond, Howard played shortstop, catcher, third base and outfield.
With double-headers scheduled for multiple days during the week, Howard recalls playing as many 167 games in a summer.
He received numerous honors throughout his career, including the best defensive player trophy in 1977. One of his highlights in 1977 occurred while playing for Manke Lumber against Seattle’s Peterbuilt nine in a double-header.
Howard was 4-for-6 from the dish overall.
In the first game he went 2-for-3 against Gram Arnold, scoring once with two RBIs, and in the nightcap he went 2-for-3 with a homerun and two RBIs against Stofflet in a 2-0 win.
In 1977 Arnold was arguably the best right-handed pitcher in the world and left-handed Stofflet is still considered one of the greatest pitchers to ever throw a ball. In 1978, while playing for B&I Sports in the Seattle Invitational Tournament, Howard went 3-for-4 and scored twice against Kern, who was the fastest pitcher in the world at the time, in a 4-0 win over Victoria, B.C., which happened to be the former Canadian National Champions. In the two-day tournament against some of the toughest teams in America Howard went 11-for-15.
In 1979 Howard’s batting average was .735, in 1980 his batting average was .683 and he had more than 50 stolen bases in both of those seasons. Howard gave up fastpitch in 1981; leaving the game as one of the best hitters, but it was his base stealing which set him apart from other great hitters.
After leaving the Tacoma area, Howard coached baseball in Texas for 19 years where his teams won the city championship every year and claimed eight regional titles. He also served 10 years as president of a youth basketball league.
The Old-Timer Baseball & Softball Museum in Tacoma has memorabilia on display; one being a B&I Sports jacket from 1979 which belonged to Howard.
Howard refers to his playing fastpitch in the Pacific Northwest as a “dream come true,” saying that he played fastpitch in three other states after leaving Tacoma, but that “no other place in the world played fastpitch like the Pacific Northwest.”
Howard, a retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army, lives in Queen City with his wife Kim.
*Note from the Sports Editor: This article is a year in the making. Mr. Howard brought in the wealth of information in June of 2015 and through the normal latch of summer and the vaccuum which is football season and the school year I was unable to get to it until this year. For that I apologize and say congrats for making the Hall of Fame in a sport in which most of us will never know but surely will take the time to admire. - Tim Emmons.