Missouri State

RYAN HOWARD
Baseball, 1999-2001
Inducted 2016

Ryan Howard was a three-year slugging first baseman for the Bears of Coach Keith Guttin from 1999 through 2001. Howard was the Missouri State and Missouri Valley Conference Rookie of the Year and a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American in 1999. He finished his Bears' playing days with 50 home runs, 183 runs batted in and a .335 hitting mark over 172 Missouri State games. A St. Louis native, he pounded 19 homers and drove home 66 runs as a freshman as the Bears reached the NCAA Fayetteville Regional Tournament finals. With the team moving to spacious Price Cutter Park in Ozark in 2000, Howard blasted 18 homers with 63 RBIs and a .375 plate mark as a sophomore when he was voted A.E. "Ted" Willis MSU Most Valuable Player. He finished among the Bears' all-time top 10 in seven offensive categories for his career, including home runs, runs batted in, walks, total bases, extra-base hits, slugging percentage and runs scored. His Missouri State jersey No. 6 was retired by MSU in 2010 as Howard became only the second Bear baseballer to have his number retired, after long-time coach Bill Rowe. Howard was drafted in the fifth round by the Philadelphia Phillies after his junior season at Missouri State and he has played 12 seasons with the Phillies in a career in which he was the 2005 National League Rookie of the Year, the 2006 National League Most Valuable Player and a member of the Phillies'2008 World Series championship club as the Phils bested the Tampa Bay Rays in a six-game series. He's a three-time NL all-star selection and finished in the top 10 in National League MVP voting six times from 2005 to 2012. He hit 58 home runs for the Phils in 2006 and has blasted more than 40 round-trippers in three other NL seasons.