Howie Schultz graduated from St. Paul Central High School in 1940. He was nearly 6-6, a giant for that generation. Later, the sportswriters covering the Brooklyn Dodgers would refer to him as "The Steeple."

 

Schultz was headed for Hamline to play basketball for the revered coach, Joe Hutton, out of high school.

 

Lou McKenna was a St. Paul sportswriter. He also worked for the St. Paul Saints, a Dodgers' Class AAA farm club.

 

McKenna told the 17-year-old Schultz that he had a summer job for him playing for Grand Forks in the Northern League.

 

Schultz was there for a third summer in 1942. Come August, the Saints were caught short of players, so he was signed to complete the season in St. Paul.

 

"I was putting up some decent numbers for a terrible team in St. Paul in 1943," Schultz said. "The Dodgers brought me up in August, just a few weeks after my 21st birthday."

 

There were two categories on Schultz's résumé that interested Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey: A) those good numbers in St. Paul; and B) 4F status with his draft board.

 

"I was measured at 6-6 and one-eighth, and the limit was 6-6," he said.

 

Schultz had his busiest and most productive season for the Dodgers in 1944, when he was 22: 138 games, 526 at-bats, .255, with 11 home runs and 83 RBI.

 

The Battle of the Bulge created enough apprehension that draft boards relaxed their requirements. Schultz was called back and reclassified 1A.

 

He was told not to leave Minnesota to attend spring training. He finished his degree at Hamline that spring. He was to be inducted in May 1945, but the War in Europe ended, and the draft board told him he wasn't needed.

 

The Steeple went back to the Dodgers. He played in only 39 big-league games that season, batting .239. A year later, he played in 90 games and batted .253.

 

Schultz also had starred at Hamline on the 1942 team that won the first of Hutton's three National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball championships.

 

The small city of Anderson, Ind., had a team in the National Basketball League called the Packers. Schultz started playing there in 1946. In the spring of '47, he finished the Packers' season and showed up late for Dodgers' spring training in Havana, Cuba.

 

The Dodgers were training there to minimize the problems for Jackie Robinson, the player who was about to integrate major league baseball.

 

"His first year, Jackie played first base," Schultz said. "I'm a footnote in history -- the guy who was benched to allow baseball to be integrated."

 

On May 9, 1947, the Dodgers sold Schultz to Philadelphia for $50,000. He intended to retire from baseball after that season. Then, in 1948, Philadelphia's first baseman was hurt, and Schultz was convinced to return. He later would qualify for a major league pension because of his service time earned that season.

 

Schultz served as Anderson's player-coach in 1948-49. That summer, the NBL was absorbed into the Basketball Association of America to form the NBA. Schultz finished that season with another Indiana team, the Fort Wayne Pistons.

 

Some businessmen in St. Paul decided to try a team, the Lights, in another upstart league (NPBL). Schultz signed on as the player-coach.

 

"We lasted 20 games ... made it to Christmas," he said.

 

Schultz then played two seasons with the Minneapolis Lakers -- quite a bit on the title team of 1952, not so much on the title team of 1953.

 

When Schultz's professional career was over, he shared this distinction with Gene Conley: The only players to serve enough time to qualify for pensions from both major league baseball and the NBA.

 

Later, Schultz would coach at St. Paul Mechanic Arts, and then he would replace the legend, Hutton, as Hamline's coach in 1965. He stayed seven seasons at his alma mater, coached a little more in the St. Paul high schools, and then retired.

 

OK, readers, if you have made it this far, you might be expecting bad news on Howie.

 

Nope. This interview was conducted Saturday. He's 82 and doing fine. Howie and Gloria, his wife of soon-to-be 60 years, will stay in Minnesota through the holidays to be with family, then head to their winter place in Naples, Fla. There, Howie will play his three or four rounds per week on the adjacent Foxfire golf course.

 

"I shot my age for the first time when I was 73 and haven't missed a year since," Schultz said. "I got there [82] a couple of times this year. I can't wait until I turn 83 in July. That one stroke can make all the difference for me these days."