Growing up in the Washington, D.C., area in the late 1950s through the 1960s, I started buying Topps penny wax packs – yes, they sold those back then with one card and a slab of gum starting in 1957. I got them from an old school bus converted into a rolling grocery store that stopped on our street. At that point, I knew next to nothing about the game itself. But I soon became enamored of the first Senators franchise and then, having no real alternative, the expansion team.
Quickly assembled, those second Nats lost 100 games four seasons in a row. Manager Gil Hodges, hired in May 1963, pushed for a trade of the Senators’ best pitcher, lefty Claude Osteen, to the Dodgers, for several unproven players and one slugging outfielder, 6-foot-7 Frank Howard.
At 87, Howard died on Oct. 30, 2023.
I spent a good bit of my allowance on Topps nickel packs and also Fleer ’59 Ted Williams cards and the Fleer old-timers sets in 1961 and ’62. But mostly I craved Senators cards, easily settling on big Frank as my favorite player. By the time he arrived, I was old enough to drive and subscribe to The Sporting News. I drove about 20 minutes with one of my buddies as often as we could to D.C. Stadium to pay $1.50 general admission and watch Howard do his best to play left field. The struggling Senators didn’t draw well, so the ushers always let us move down to the left-field boxes after a couple of innings.
Because he gained his most enduring fame in Washington, eight of my 10 favorite Howard cards picture him as a Senator. During his playing days my choices were restricted by the Topps monopoly and surely seem a bit static compared with those of the 1980s and beyond. No matter. Seven of them are on my list.
A multitude of post-career Howard cards are out there. I don’t collect anywhere near all of them. Some are quite nice. But two I do have are among my 10 favorites of a man who probably is the only member of the Washington expansion team that fans today might have heard of.
10. 1964 Topps #139 World Series game as a Dodger

Howard’s homer off Whitey Ford in Game 4 of the 1963 Series in Los Angeles is featured in the World Series subset. It looks like Whitey’s pitch was meant to be below the strike zone, but Frank golfed it out. Howard’s homer didn’t by itself seal the doom – a Mantle homer tied it — but it sure helped in a 2-1 victory and Dodgers’ sweep. Such a big moment deserves a spot on my list.
9. 1971 Topps #620

This is Howard’s last Senators’ card. The end of an era and A.L. baseball in D.C. Having lost two teams, it took me several years to return to the game. Years later, when I found a big batch of my 1960s cards, I became serious about collecting. I bought this card online. The nice head-shot shows the defending home run and RBI champ with the eyeglasses he always wore, his red batting helmet over his baseball cap, which was a common practice back then. His first five cards as a Dodger, by the way, show him without eyeglasses, but he wore them in every card as a Senator. The back of the ’70 card makes note of his record 10 homers in six games in 1968.
A downside is Topps pawning off, as it did in the ’67 set, a facsimile autograph that obviously isn’t how Howard signs his name. (More on that later.)
8. 1969 Topps #170

This one has an even better head-shot than the ’71 card and features the last photo of the blue cap with the curly W, the one the current Nationals wear, and the red piping, although the circle with his name covers up the piping. I got the one I have PSA graded as I slowly build my “Decade of the Senators” set.
7. 1971 Kellogg’s 3D #14

The best cards of Howard feature him with a bat in his hand, which is why this card makes my list. I admit I got this card long after he retired, but it’s a card from his playing days that isn’t a Topps and he’s in a white home uniform. The card also noted the nickname that was most familiar to his fans: “Hondo.” And it has a facsimile autograph of what appears to be Howard’s own signing style.
6. 1984 Topps #621

He was named to manage to Mets after George Bamberger quit at the beginning of June in 1983. By the time the card was issued, the Mets had hired Davey Johnson ( Johnson is in that year’s Topps Traded set) to replace Howard, but I’m glad I got to see a card with him in the uniform of the team I followed after I lost the Nats and before Washington got a team back. This is a PSA 10 from my 1984 PSA set, which is 98 percent complete, if anybody but me cares.
5. 1985 Topps Collectors’ Series #19

I got this card for a couple of bucks on eBay. Howard, bat in hand, helmet over his cap and no batting gloves, is wearing a road uniform. The team used the script “Senators” at home and on the road, rather than “Washington,” after 1962. None of Howard’s Topps cards show him in the pinstriped home uniform used through 1968. The card’s back notes his 1960 Rookie-of-the-Year selection, his home runs crowns in 1968 and 1970 and his RBI title in ’70, which makes it more appealing to me than some other archival cards.
4. 1968 Topps #320

Howard in a batting stance, sans helmet. On his left hand, he wears some type of thick-looking batting glove, which nobody used in games back then, other than Ken Harrelson. The cartoon quiz on the back notes his status as a basketball All-American at Ohio State. He was an NBA draftee.
3. 1994 Ted Williams Card Company #88

This Ted Williams series card shows Howard completing his powerful swing, stirrups over inner socks I would assume, in the all-white home uniform worn in 1969 through 1971, the years Ted himself managed the expansion team. The lighter secondary image shows him in a home uniform with pinstripes, which would have been from 1968, given his red helmet over what looks like a red cap. The back nicely lists stats from his five best seasons, although his career totals credit him with 1,119 doubles! I wish.
The back also features what look like a Howard autograph the way he signs them. The main giveaway is the true cursive F rather than the printed F on the two phony Topps autographs. I’ve included a scan of the Howard autograph that he signed for me outside D.C. Stadium before a June 1965 game with the Yankees (I got Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford the same day. Still have ‘em) It’s similar to the cursive F in every Howard card with a purportedly genuine autograph that I’ve seen online.

2. 1971 Topps #65: 1970 American League Home Run Leaders

My copy of this is a PSA 7. Although this was the second time Howard led in homers, this leader card has him atop Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew, whose 49 topped Hondo’s 48 for the title in ’69, and Carl Yastrzemski. The Senators finished 10th in 1968, so the ’69 leader card can’t help but remind me of what Branch Rickey is often quoted as having told homer champ Ralph Kiner: “We can finish last without you.” The 1971 card followed the expansion team’s first (and only) winning record, and with Howard capping four seasons in which he hit more home runs that anybody else in the majors.
1. 1966 Topps #515

This card was his first as a Senator. Even though Howard was dealt to Washington on December 4, 1964, his ’65 Topps card shows him as Dodger, while noting the trade on the back. In any case, this 1966 is a beauty: The bespectacled Howard kneeling as if on-deck, a good shot of the cap with the curly W and the red piping, the script “Senators” across his jersey. To my delight, this card accompanies Mark Armour’s SABR bio essay on Howard. His best seasons were yet to come, but Hondo was already the club’s foundation player.
I love wearing the Senators’ 1963 to ’68 blue curly W caps these days because people figure, correctly, that I’m a Nationals’ fan, but if they ask about it, I get to tell them that the hat is actually one the Senators wore back in the 1960s.
Howard was beloved by Washington fans, me included. He hit the last Senators’ homer in the last game at what became Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, even if the pitch was admittedly grooved. He loved playing in D.C. He has a statue outside Nationals Park. His career did not make him a Hall of Famer, but he always will be one in the hearts of us aging Senators’ fans.












































































































