The Howard’s: Ron Howard is Mike Schmidt of the Phillies!!!

Look at him!!! Isn’t he beautiful!!! 100% pure Ron Howard wrapped up in a Mike Schmidt uniform!!

Ron Howard aka Mike Schmidt!!!

Mike Schmidt aka Ron Howard: Baseball player Michael Jack Schmidt is an American former professional baseball third baseman who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies. Wikipedia Born: September 27, 1949 (age 67), Dayton, OH Height: 6′ 2″ Spouse: Donna Wightman (m. 1974) Number: 20 (Philadelphia Phillies / Infielder) Position: Infielder Children: Jonathan Michael Schmidt, Jessica Rae Schmidt

OK, how did I get this one? I saw Ron on some sort of Network TV show like “Battle of the Network Stars”…or something like that. Grizzly Adams was in the dunk tank. Grizzly must have known what was coming because he didn’t kid around with Ron the way he did with Penny Marshall. Ron smiled, took the baseball and unleashed it in a split second, looked like sidearm to me and almost all wrist and Grizzly was in Davy Jones Locker or is that John Paul Jones… I forget.

I thought at first it would be impossible for Ron to be a major league player because of all the other things he does…silly me. After I got to know him I realized nothing was out of his reach and I had seen him as Roy Scheider answer questions to Stuttering John while playing ball.

Addendum: I checked out my hunch and it’s true…Ron Howard was the person who initiated the idea of having Stuttering John become the announcer for the tonight show with Jay Leno. Howard Stern was angry with John for leaving the show. They gave John something like a million dollars a year to do this. Ron would have seen and met John repeatedly on the Stern Show, probably dozens of times and you can see below Ron’s very respectful to the smoking lady, reminiscent of him playing that cock-sucker Ed Begley (Mr. 911 Truth) but really does enjoy the interview with John.

Go to 1:22 for the start of the interview:

Also, as Woody Allen he caught a well hit pop up and declared it was, “a can of corn.” A perfect metaphor for Woody meaning a relatively easy catch.

OK so I figured he was a major league ball player…how did I find him. I googled red headed baseball players which churned up a lot of players. I then looked for Le Grande Orange which didn’t look like Ron. Then I just happened to find a picture of Mike Schmidt who looked promising but I was out of time so I just jotted his name down in my handy dandy notebook! The rest is history.

This and the last find are really big…Mike Schmidt and James Clavell. I’m proud to call him my friend. I hope I can live up to that without getting murdered in my sleep!