Update: Former major league GM H.B. ‘Spec’ Richardson dies

H.B. “Spec” Richardson spent a lifetime in professional baseball, starting his career selling hot dogs and sodas for a minor league team in his hometown and climbing the ladder to become Major League Baseball’s executive of the year.

Richardson, 93, died Tuesday morning at his home in north Columbus. He had been in failing health in recent years and died of natural causes.

When he and his wife, Tommye, returned home more than 25 years ago to retire, Richardson had completed a long and colorful front-office career.

It started in 1946 as the concession manager with the Columbus, Cardinals and he rose through the ranks to general manager of the Houston Astros and San Francisco Giants.

When John Dittrich landed in Columbus as general manager of the RedStixx, he met Richardson, who he knew by reputation.

“He’s one of baseball’s good, ol’ boys,” Dittrich said. “He is the front office part of the Golden Era of the game. You had people like (Roberto) Clemente and (Hank) Aaron on the field and folks like Spec in the front office.”

Dayton Preston, who was a longtime friend and once was part of an ownership group for the minor-league Columbus Astros, said it is hard to describe Richardson’s career.

“It is almost impossible to do what he did,” Preston said. “But he did it and he was good at it. Baseball was all he knew.”

Richardson was general manager of the Astros from 1967-75.

In his role with Houston, he was was directly responsible for the construction of the Astrodome, the Astros home stadium that was dubbed the eighth wonder of the world. Richardson worked directly for Judge Roy Hofheinz, who owned the Astros, formerly the Colt 45s.

“He was Judge Hofheinz’s boy,” Dittrich said. “Spec was the one who oversaw the construction of the Astrodome.”

It started out as the Harris County Domed Stadium when it opened in 1965.

“Everything that Judge Hofheinz wanted he got and Spec saw to it,” Dittrich said. “They had suites before anyone else did. They had the exploding scoreboard long before anyone else in baseball had it. You didn’t have all the HD stuff, so they did it with neon.”

He is remembered for several major trades. In 1971 he traded Joe Morgan, Denis Menke, Jack Billingham and Cesar Geronimo to Cincinnati in exchange for a package of players that included first baseman Lee May. Morgan, Billingham and Geronimo became key players on the Reds’ championship teams.

“Sure he made some bad trades,” Dittrich said. “But every general manager in Major League Baseball who did it as long as Spec did, made some bad trades. But don’t forget, he was also baseball’s executive of the year.”

There was one trade in particular that Preston liked to rib Richardson about. In 1967, Richardson traded future Hall of Fame slugger Eddie Mathews to Detroit for pitcher Fred Gladding.

“He got a one-eyed, right-handed relief pitcher from Detroit for one of the greats of the game,” Preston said. “I always told Spec that was the dumbest trade he ever made. And Fred was one of my best friends.”

Richardson left Houston and became general manager of the San Francisco Giants, where he was named Major League "Executive of the Year" in 1978.

He is perhaps best known for a controversial 1978 trade with the Oakland Athletics in which he acquired pitcher Vida Blue for the Giants. The trade was made after Commissioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed an attempt by A's owner Charlie Finley to sell Blue to the Yankees.

Richardson kept the hotel bar napkin on which he recorded the specifics of that trade.

It was while he was with the Giants that Richardson did one of the very first Miller Lite beer commercials. He and fellow general manager Al Rosen were seen sharing a beer and trading baseball cards.

The stint with the Giants didn’t last and he was fired in 1980.

Richardson, like many ballplayers, worked his way through the minor leagues to the big leagues. After leaving Columbus, he was business manager for the Jacksonville Tars from 1949-52. He was promoted to general manager of the club that became the Jacksonville Braves and held that job until 1958.

He was the Jacksonville general manager when the team, along with Savannah, broke the color line in the South Atlantic League. That Jacksonville team included Hank Aaron, a newly signed kid from Mobile, Ala. Felix Mantilla joined Aaron on that team.

Richardson returned to Columbus with his wife, Tommye, around 1989 and they became fixtures at local minor league baseball and hockey games.

When Chicago businessman Charlie Morrow purchased the Columbus minor league franchise and moved his family here in 1994, Richardson became one of his friends and mentors, said Morrow’s widow, Martha Paull.

“He has such a love of baseball and such a love of Columbus and he wanted so badly for baseball to survive and thrive in Columbus,” Paull said. “… He did help guide Charlie in his first foray into baseball. He took his advice seriously and was a good source of information.”

Columbus Cottonmouths coach and general manager Jerome Bechard might have been a hockey guy and Richardson was a baseball man, but they built a mutual bond and respect. After he retired from baseball, Richardson volunteered in the Cottonmouths front office.

“He was old-school, business-like and sharp as a tack,” Bechard said Tuesday. “He was an open book and full of unbelievable knowledge.”

When Bechard moved off the ice and into the front office and coaching jobs, he said Richardson was always willing to help.

“I could show him anything,” Bechard said. “We would go over budgets, settlements and talk about how they did things on the major-league level and he would help me adapt.”

There also was a powerful love story in Richardson’s life. He met his wife, Tommye, a native of Fort Mitchell, Ala., when he was working with the Columbus Cardinals. She worked at the Western Union office in downtown Columbus, and he would go there every night to send dispatches back to St. Louis, the parent club.

They were married for 60 years when she died in the fall of 2009.

“They were a great team,” Preston said. “ Tommye and baseball were his life. And, as you know, baseball people who worked in management at that time had a pretty tough life — a lot of strange hours and a lot of travel. But at the end of the day, she was always the one who was in control. Spec just didn’t know it.”

Jan Hyatt lived next door to the Richardsons for the last 27 years, and they became a part of her family.

“I can still see her saying, ‘Now, Spec,’ correcting him and reeling him in,” Hyatt said. “When he wouldn’t listen to anyone else, he would listen to her.”

Paull described the relationship this way: “She was the softness to his grumpy side.”

They often attended hockey games and sat in the same seats, Bechard said.

“They were so loving and I know when Miss Tommye passed, he was like ‘I need to go, too,’ ” Bechard said. “I know he probably prayed every day to go join her.”

Richardson was recognized for his work and made it into a number of sports Hall of Fames. He’s in the South Atlantic League Hall of Fame, the Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame and the Jordan High School Hall of Fame. He was a manager on the 1943 Jordan basketball team that won a state title.

Preston said that Richardson may have been the most significant sports figure to come out of Columbus behind only Baseball Hall of Fame member Frank Thomas.

Richardson is survived by his daughter, Cindy Venturelli, and four grandchildren, who all live in the Oakland, Calif., area. Visitation will be Friday from 5-8 p.m. at Striffler-Hamby Mortuary on Macon Road. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, also at Striffler-Hamby.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 11:01 AM with the headline "Update: Former major league GM H.B. ‘Spec’ Richardson dies."