Yankees’ Howe Finally Growing Up

ANAHEIM —  The skepticism surrounding the New York Yankees’ decision to sign Steve Howe in February was certainly justified considering Howe’s baseball blotter.

Six times in the past eight years, Howe has been suspended for drug or alcohol abuse, and six times he was reinstated.

Fans had to wonder: Did the Yankees really need baseball’s Problem Child of the 1980s?

But as Howe has discovered, New York fans can be a forgiving bunch.

“They don’t care if you’re Attila the Hun as long as you get the job done,” Howe said.

That, Howe has done. The former Dodger bullpen ace, who was the 1980 National League Rookie of the Year, was 3-0 with a 1.29 earned-run average and two saves Friday night after the Yankees’ 2-1 victory over the Angels. Howe faced two batters, retiring Luis Polonia to end the ninth inning and Wally Joyner to start the 10th, to earn the victory.

The 33-year-old left-hander with the blazing fastball had allowed one of 18 inherited runners to score, and lefties are batting only .090 (three for 33) against him.

“We saw a good arm, we took a chance and got lucky,” Yankee General Manager Gene Michael said.

It will be the last chance any major league team takes on Howe. One more relapse, and Howe is gone for good.

This was one of the conditions that Howe agreed to during a 1989 meeting with baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent, who allowed Howe to return but said there would be no seventh chance. The other condition was that Howe had to undergo twice-monthly drug tests.

Howe has been clean since then, but he wouldn’t say he was over his drug problem.

“It’s in remission,” Howe said. “I’m confident enough now that it’s a choice--not a compulsion. For the last 2 1/2 years, I’ve made good choices.”

For most of his pro baseball career, he made very poor choices.

Howe burst onto the Dodger scene in 1980, a brash, 22-year-old rookie with a 94-m.p.h. fastball. He was the team’s top reliever through 1982 but was suspended twice by the Dodgers in 1983. Howe served a one-year suspension from baseball in 1984 but was released midway through the 1985 season after failing to show for a game.

The Minnesota Twins signed Howe but released him that September after he admitted to having a relapse.

Howe spent 1986 with the Class-A San Jose Bees and was suspended twice because of failed drug tests. He joined the Texas Rangers in 1987 but was released after the season after another substance abuse violation.

“Early in my career I wanted to be with certain people and did what I had to do,” Howe said. “That’s called peer pressure. There’s a road to good and a road to bad and you make the choice. When you’re immature, you do what you want and say the heck with everyone else.

“For that, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand then because I was a selfish person. I hurt a lot of people, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Howe, who has an 8-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, said there has been no miracle solution to his apparent recovery.

“It’s called growing up,” he said. “It’s called looking at your kids and knowing you have a responsibility to them and to your employer.”

Howe is grateful for the chance the Yankees have given him and appreciative of the way the team has treated him. Or, to be exact, the way they haven’t treated him.

“They just told me to go play ball, and that took a lot of pressure off me,” Howe said. “I don’t have to worry about a psychologist telling me how to run my marriage or asking how I feel. They’re the only club that hasn’t tested me. They know if I was using drugs, I wouldn’t show up.”

The commissioner’s office tests Howe, though, and if one more result is positive, he won’t be showing up in any more major league games.

“But that ain’t gonna happen,” Howe said.