About Ralph Houk
Ralph George Houk, nicknamed "the Major", was an American catcher, coach, manager, and front office executive in Major League Baseball. He is best known as the successor of Casey Stengel as manager of the New York Yankees from 1961 to 1963, when his teams won three consecutive American League pennants and the 1961 and 1962 World Series championships. In 1961 he became the second rookie manager to win 100 games in a season and third rookie manager to win a World Series. He was the first manager to win World Series titles in his first two seasons and the first manager since Hughie Jennings to win three pennants in his first three seasons. Following three highly successful seasons at Denver, culminating with the 1957 league playoff and Junior World Series championships, Houk returned to the Bronx as Stengel's first-base coach from 1958 to 1960. He was a combat veteran of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Silver Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster and Purple Heart.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.