Like so many area youngsters who wanted to get a start in baseball, Jamie Shevchik walked through the doors at Battaglia's Sporting Goods in downtown Scranton. He went for the batting gloves and some time in the cages.
As the years went by, he kept going back to see "Howie."
Bill Howerton earned a reputation as the steady hand at the helm of the University of Scranton baseball team for 16 years, from 1986 through the 2002 season. He was the son of a big leaguer, and he also spent 11 seasons as coach of the Scranton Red Soxx and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Twins in the Atlantic Coast Baseball League. He even spent a season playing professionally in the San Francisco Giants organization.
But to guys like Shevchik, he was the friendly, helpful man all too eager to tell a story or help find some equipment for anyone who walked into Battaglia's.
Now the coach at Keystone College, Shevchik never played for Howie. He coached against him, but not with him. But to Howie, that never mattered.
He taught baseball the way he lived life. Straight-forward. With class.
Howerton died unexpectedly Friday morning. He was 67. The cause of death has not been released, but those who knew Howie - and practically anybody who participated in area athletics did - said the effect of his death will be felt as long as bats are swung in Lackawanna County.
"He has been like a second father to me," Shevchik said, fighting back tears. "He has always been the guy. He was a mentor to me. Any time I needed advice on baseball, he was the guy I went to.
"He has helped so many people. Even my players. Any time they needed anything - help, equipment - they went to him. Since I started coaching in the early '90s, I'm not sure I've ever gone to anybody but Bill."
A good enough player to be drafted by the San Francisco Giants out of Diablo Valley College in California, Howerton's accomplishments as a coach in the Scranton area were extensive.
In 1975, he managed the Scranton Red Soxx to an ACBL championship, and more than a decade later, he began his long run at the helm of the Royals, where he went 182-321-3. The fledgling program had back-to-back winning seasons in 1989 and 1990, and in 1997, Howerton's Royals won the Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom League championship.
"It was an enjoyable experience, one I'll never forget," Howerton said upon his retirement in 2002. "I had the pleasure of coaching some outstanding players and working with some great people. More importantly, many of my former players have remained lifelong friends, and I'll always cherish that."
Brian Jardine was one of those lifelong friends.
After a stellar career at Moravian College, where he played several times against Howerton's Royals, Jardine accepted an opportunity extended by Howerton to coach with him. So, in 1998 and 1999, Jardine sat alongside Howerton on the Royals bench, learning as he went, from a coach he came to know as a brilliant game strategist.
"It's funny, because when you come out of college, you're so young and intense. A kid makes an error, and you just want to jump all over him for it," Jardine, who is currently the coach at North Pocono High School, said. "But he was just so calm and relaxed. He knew the game so well. He knew when to say something.
There were times when Howerton got "fired up," Jardine said, but during the flow of the game "he'd never crack."
"He sort of just knew what he was doing, all the time," Jardine said. "What he does in times like that is what a lot of players who played for him remember. As a young coach, that's something I learned from him."
Jardine called Howerton one of the best in-game decision makers he had ever seen, and Kevin Southard saw it first-hand.
The sports information director at the University of Scranton, Southard recalled many occasions where he'd be taking score on the bench and watch as Howerton made decision after decision, coaching move after coaching move, that only made sense in the moments after he made it.
"He would see things with people batting, or when they were on the basepaths," Southard said. "You'd look at the same thing, and it wouldn't hit you. But he'd make these observations, and you'd just think 'Wow, that was dead on.' It was baserunning, a throw to the plate, how a guy swung a bat. He just truly understood the essence of the game."
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Working at Battaglia's, Howerton was the go-to guy for youngsters and teams alike, from those playing at the highest levels to those just starting out.
When the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons first opened for business in 1989, they went to Howerton and Battaglia's to furnish the team's uniforms and equipment, a role they held with the team for decades.
Howerton became much more than a business partner, too. He was a familiar face around the ballpark, sharing stories of baseball and local sports history with former general managers Bill Terlecky and Rick Muntean, who counted him as a close friend.
"He was an encyclopedia," longtime Red Barons and Yankees public address announcer John Davies said. "Without Bill, it's like a library burning down.
"He's going to be missed by a lot of people. He was a very, very good businessman. But he was a great person. He was one of the mainstays in local sports, be it high school, college or professional. He was always there for anybody."
Most often, he was there for Shevchik when he needed it. When he walked into Battaglia's as a 19-year-old, looking for uniforms for the Collegiate Summer Baseball League team he was hoping to start, admittedly knowing nothing about starting a team, it was Howie who sat him down with the price guides, sharing his knowledge and giving him his support.
When Shevchik's Keystone program went from the junior college ranks to four-year status, he found few NCAA Division III teams willing to face them. So Howerton made some calls to connections he had made at colleges and in the coaching ranks, scraping up opponents for a school that was one of Scranton's local rivals.
For prominent area coaches like Shevchik and Jardine, Roger Barren and Joe Vadala, there was no source of information or guidance or support better than what they found walking through those familiar doors at Battaglia's.
"We all grew up together. We're all part of that same group that became coaches," Shevchik said. "I think Bill Howerton played a huge part in all of our careers.
"I don't know if anybody is ever going to be able to take his place."
Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com
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