Howie Haak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Howard Frederick Haak | |
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| Born: August 28, 1911 Rochester, New York | |
| Died: February 22, 1999 (aged 87) Palm Springs, California | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| Teams | |
| As scout | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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Howard Frederick Haak (August 28, 1911 — February 22, 1999; /ˈheɪk/; rhymes with "take") was an American professional baseball scout for almost 50 years, from the end of World War II through his 1993 retirement.
Haak was born in Rochester, New York, in 1911, the son of Chester Arthur Haak and Wanda Alice (née Ruddy). He graduated from Madison Junior High and Rochester West High School. Haak later enrolled at the University of Rochester, where he majored in medicine and chemistry, and was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity.
Haak married Virginia Edholm in Manassas Virginia on June 16, 1939, and had two daughters, Betty Olson and Marjorie Archuleta. The couple later divorced. Haak married his second wife, Crystal Tate, in Yuma, Arizona on January 12, 1954, after he spotted her sitting in a box seat in Hollywood’s Gilmore Field. They had one child together, Phillip Von Haak, in August of 1959.
Playing and early scouting career
Baseball Reference lists no playing record under Haak's entry,[1] but according to his New York Times obituary and an interview with Tom Bird published in the February 1994 issue of Baseball Digest, Haak was a catcher in the extensive St. Louis Cardinals farm system during the 1930s. According to the Bird interview, a badly injured throwing arm ended Haak's playing career, but he was still in the game as traveling secretary of the Cards' Rochester Red Wings farm club at the close of the 1941 season when he answered the telephone in a deserted Red Wings' clubhouse. The caller was Cardinals' general manager Branch Rickey.
"He said, 'I need an outfielder right now for the big club. Is there anyone there who can help us?'" Haak recalled in 1994. "'Yeah,' I said, 'Musial, and take Kurowski and Dusak with him.'"[2] Hall of Famer Stan Musial went on to set the National League record for hits (since broken by all-time hits leader Pete Rose), while Whitey Kurowski starred as a third baseman on St. Louis' 1940s dynasty and Erv Dusak had a creditable MLB career as an outfielder.
During the Second World War, Rickey left St. Louis to take over the Brooklyn Dodger organization, and when he expanded his scouting staff at the war's end in 1945, he hired Haak as a full-time Brooklyn scout. In that capacity, Haak was one of several Dodger evaluators who scouted Jackie Robinson while he played in the Negro leagues. Robinson ultimately broke the baseball color line and went on to the Hall of Fame.
Scouted Latin America and Caribbean
Although he spoke little Spanish, he became perhaps the best-known Major League Baseball scout of his era who worked in Latin America and the Caribbean, and signed "scores of players" during his career from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Cuba, and the Virgin Islands — most of them for the Pittsburgh Pirates, for whom Haak worked for 38 years. Haak also played a key role in the Pirates' decision to select Roberto Clemente in the 1954 Rule 5 draft; the right fielder from Puerto Rico would go on to make 3,000 hits, win two World Series championships and the 1971 World Series MVP award, and earn an immediate place in the Baseball Hall of Fame upon his death in an airplane crash while on a humanitarian mission to Nicaragua.[3]