<-- Select --> Current Issue Summer 2007 Spring 2007 Winter 2007 Fall 2006 Summer 2006 Spring 2006 Winter 2006 Fall 2005 Summer 2005 Spring 2005 Winter 2005 Fall 2004 Summer 2004 Spring 2004 Winter 2003 Fall 2003       Philadelphia Phillie Ryan Howard, last year’s National League MVP and Major League Baseball’s homerun champ (with 58), had recently signed a new one-year contract for $900,000, paltry dollars given his performance, but maximum money for a baseball player not eligible for salary arbitration. His pay is the highest ever for someone with less than two years of playing time in the Major Leagues. Like many pro athletes, he treated himself to a contract-signing new toy, but Howard added, “My other truck, a Yukon Denali, has over a 100,000 miles on it. I needed to get something newer.” And classier. The pearly white 2007 Escalade sports 26-inch Asanti rims wrapped with Pirelli tires. It also includes a Strut collection: a crimped mesh grille and matching side vents.   The car’s coup de grâce is on the inside, though. “I need my trunk space,” Howard said. “That’s huge ’cause I usually drive everywhere.” That precluded mounting a wall of stereo equipment in the back, so Boulevard Customs came up with a novel innovation: a center console that sits between the two back captain’s seats and matches the one up front. Inside the box, they installed two large subwoofers that sit five inches above the Escalade’s floor and shoot sound downward. Howard fired up a rap tune, and the 2,500-watt system put out some serious boom. And he gets to keep his trunk room.   Howard is a celebrity who appears comfortable with his fans and his fame. Maybe it’s because he didn’t make it to the big leagues until age 25. Perhaps it’s due to his upbringing. Howard grew up in a large, close-knit family in St. Louis, Missouri. His parents instilled in him a work ethic and humility. His mother, Cheryl Howard, is his accountant. She keeps him on an allowance, which made quite a little media stir after it was revealed on a segment of HBO’s Real Sports. When one of the Phillie fans at the photo shoot in Clearwater, Florida, complimented his new Escalade, Howard quipped back, “I had to sneak it out of my allowance.”