23 Facts About Ralph Houk

Ralph Houk is best known as the successor of Casey Stengel as manager of the New York Yankees from 1961 to 1963, when his teams won three consecutive American League pennants and the 1961 and 1962 World Series championships.

Ralph Houk was the second rookie manager to win 100 games in a season and third rookie manager to win a World Series, doing each in 1961.

Ralph Houk was the first manager to win World Series titles in his first two seasons and the first manager since Hughie Jennings to win three pennants in his first three seasons.

Ralph Houk enlisted in the armed forces, serving with Company I, 89th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron of the 9th Armored Division in July 1944.

Ralph Houk was a combat veteran of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Silver Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster and Purple Heart.

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From late May through early June 1960, Ralph Houk served as acting manager of the Yanks for 13 games while Stengel, 70, was sidelined by illness.

Ralph Houk was known as a "player's manager"—albeit one with a quick temper.

The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, of which Ralph Houk is a member, describes Ralph Houk as "rough, blunt and decisive" and his tantrums in arguments with umpires earned him 45 ejections as a manager in the majors.

Ralph Houk is tied with Billy Martin for fourteenth place on baseball's "most ejected" list.

Ralph Houk moved into the Yankees' front office as general manager on October 23,1963, replacing Roy Hamey, and Berra, at the end of his playing career, became the Yanks' new manager.

Later, Ralph Houk said that the Yankee brain trust had concluded Berra wasn't ready to be a manager, though he didn't elaborate on the reasoning.

Ralph Houk had admired Keane as a competitor in the American Association from almost a decade before and, according to author David Halberstam, the Yankees had made overtures to Keane during the 1964 regular season about becoming their manager for 1965.

Ralph Houk thus began a second, and far less successful, term as Yankee manager, finishing the 1966 season.

Ralph Houk would continue to manage the Yankees from 1967 until 1973.

Ralph Houk even said that Steinbrenner insisted he'd get some new players to restore the team's greatness.

Ralph Houk succeeded former Yankees teammate Billy Martin who had been dismissed on September 2 and Joe Schultz who served in the interim for the remainder of the 1973 season.

Ralph Houk's name had been linked by the media with the Boston Red Sox' managerial job since his days as a Yankees' coach.

When Ralph Houk retired from managing permanently in October 1984, just after his 65th birthday, he bequeathed the core of another pennant winning ballclub to his successor, John McNamara.

Ralph Houk thus enjoyed one additional world championship season, when the Twins defeated the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.

Colorful opinions about Ralph Houk can be found in Jim Bouton's classic 1970 memoir, Ball Four.

Ralph Houk was Bouton's first big league manager and sparred with him over contracts when Ralph Houk was the Yankees' GM.

Ralph Houk died on July 21,2010 in Winter Haven, Florida, just nineteen days before he would have turned 91.

Ralph Houk was survived by a daughter, Donna; a son, Robert; four grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.