The pitching talents of Grand Haven’s Howard Bailey made him one of the area’s handful of baseball players to rise to the highest level of professional baseball. He had the added good fortune of playing for Michigan’s own Detroit Tigers for three seasons (1981-1983), when the Tigers were assembling one of the finest clubs in their history – a team that dominated Major League baseball in the year following Bailey’s last season with the club.
Howard’s prep career at Grand Haven High School began in 1973, the final year of famed Buccaneer baseball coach Steve Sluka’s tenure at the school. In his junior and senior years (1974-75) under Dan Bouma and Jack Sikkenga, Bailey was mainly a position player and did not pitch regularly until his senior year. By this time he was perfecting his craft as a pitcher in the Grand Haven summer leagues and in the Muskegon Inter-City League at Marsh Field. He decided to enroll at Muskegon Community College in the fall of 1975 and pitched one year for the Jayhawks under Coach Al Hernandez. The following year he transferred to Grand Valley State University and pitched for the Laker teams coached by former big league hurler Phil Regan in 1977 and 1978. Regan’s expert tutelage helped Bailey’s development considerably and he was recruited to play for the Grand Rapids Sullivans, a top amateur nine-run with a long history of developing baseball talent.
Bob Sullivan, scouting for the Detroit Tigers convinced Howard of his potential and in August 1978 he signed a contract to play with Lakeland, Fla, a Class-A farm club of the Tigers. After posting an 8-12 record with Lakeland in 1979, he was promoted to Class AA Montgomery in 1980 and notched a 12-12 mark. He was invited to the Tigers’ spring training roster in 1981 and ended up on the pitching staff of Sparky Anderson’s parent club. After a disappointing 1-4 start, he was sent down for more seasoning at AAA Evansville, coached by Jim Leyland. He began the 1982 season with Evansville. A respectable 11-10 record resulted in another call-up to Detroit at season’s end. He remained with Detroit in 1983 and posted a 5-5 record with the Tigers before arm troubles began to threaten his career. He returned to the minors with Evansville and Montgomery in 1984, However, the chronic sore arm prevented him from joining the 1984 World Championship Tiger club. He was eventually sold to Baltimore and went to the 1985 Orioles spring training camp, but the arm troubles persisted and Bailey decided it was time to retire.
After baseball, Bailey focused his attention on the sport of skeet shooting, earning a world championship in 1990 at Savannah, GA.