Red Schoendienst - # 185

Red Schoendienst, Hall of Fame baseball player and manager, dies at 95

He was number 185 on the list.



Red Schoendienst, who spent decades in uniform as a player, coach and manager with the St. Louis Cardinals and who was the oldest living member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, died June 6 at his home near St. Louis. He was 95.

The Cardinals announced his death during Wednesday’s game in St. Louis against the Miami Marlins. The cause was not disclosed.

Mr. Schoendienst (pronounced Shane-deenst) overcome a severe eye injury and tuberculosis to have a stellar 19-year career as a switch-hitting second baseman. He helped the Cardinals win the World Series in 1946, then was a key contributor to the Milwaukee Braves during their World Series-winning season in 1957.

As a manager, he led the Cardinals for 12 years in the 1960s and ’70s, guiding the team to two National League pennants and the 1967 World Series title. Along with his former teammate Stan Musial, he came to embody the spirit of St. Louis baseball.

Musial, a Hall of Fame outfielder who died in 2013, was often called “the greatest Cardinal of them all.” Mr. Schoendienst, who remained affiliated with the team until his death and continued to appear in his familiar No. 2 uniform past the age of 90, was known simply as “Mr. Cardinal.”

“His influence on this organization cannot be overstated,” team owner William O. DeWitt Jr. said in a statement. “Red was a great player, a great manager, and a wonderful mentor to countless players, coaches, and members of the front office.”


As a teenager in Illinois, Mr. Schoendienst worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal agency that put young people to work on public building projects during the Depression. While building a fence, he was struck in the left eye by a large staple.

Doctors recommended that the eye be removed, but Mr. Schoendienst refused, knowing it would end his hopes of becoming a big-league ballplayer. After weeks in a hospital and a regimen of eye exercises, he returned to baseball.

In 1942, Mr. Schoendienst hitched a ride on a milk truck to attend a Cardinals tryout camp. He often said his signing bonus consisted of “a glass of milk and a ham sandwich.”

Assigned to a Class D team at lowest level of professional baseball, Mr. Schoendienst quickly realized that his bad eye made it difficult for him to recognize the spin on a curveball while batting righthanded. He became a switch-hitter and quickly rose through the minors and, at age 20, led the Class AAA International League in hitting.

Allowing himself three years to make the major leagues, he arrived on schedule in 1945, despite a short detour in the Army during World War II. (He was discharged because of his vision problems.)

He was a shortstop in the minor leagues, but a surplus of infielders on the big-league club forced him to move to left field. As a rookie, he led the National League in stolen bases with 26. The next year, he took over at second base and helped propel the Cardinals to the World Series against the Boston Red Sox.

St. Louis won in seven games, with Mr. Schoendienst fielding the final out, catching a bad-hop groundball with his bare hand.

Along with Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Bobby Doerr of the Red Sox, Mr. Schoendienst was considered one of the top second basemen of his time. He was named to 10 All Star teams and hit a dramatic 14th-inning home run to win the 1950 All Star Game for the National League.

In 1953, he had a career-high batting average of .342 to finish second in the league behind Brooklyn’s Carl Furillo. He was an excellent fielder, known for his range, sure hands and skill at turning the double play.

During the 1956 season, Mr. Schoendienst was traded to New York Giants. A year later, he was traded to the Milwaukee Braves. He quickly established himself as a quiet leader on a powerful team that included Hall of Fame sluggers Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews and pitcher Warren Spahn.

The Braves beat the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series, then won the National League pennant again the next year, only to lose the World Series to the Yankees. Soon afterward, Mr. Schoendienst underwent medical tests to determine why he was chronically tired, with pain in his chest.

Diagnosed with tuberculosis, he spent more than four months in a sanitarium and had part of one lung removed. He missed almost all of the 1959 season before returning to action with the Braves in 1960. He rejoined the Cardinals in 1961 as a utility infielder and pinch hitter and retired in 1963, finishing with 2,449 hits and a lifetime average of .289. He had an uncanny ability to make contact as a hitter and never struck out more than 30 times in a season.

Mr. Schoendienst was named manager of the Cardinals in 1965. Led by pitcher Bob Gibson, base-stealing champion Lou Brock and slugger Orlando Cepeda, the Cardinals defeated the Boston Red Sox in the 1967 World Series. A year later, they lost the series in seven games to the Detroit Tigers.

In 1989, Mr. Schoendienst was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., by the hall’s veterans committee. In his induction speech, he said, “I never thought that milk truck ride would eventually lead to Cooperstown and baseball’s highest honor.”

Albert Fred Schoendienst was born Feb. 2, 1923, in Germantown, Ill., 40 miles from St. Louis. His father was a coal miner who often umpired local baseball games.

Mr. Schoendienst, who got his nickname from his red hair, grew up playing in cow pastures and small-town fields across southern Illinois. Three of his five brothers played professional baseball.

After he was fired as Cardinals manager in 1976, Mr. Schoendienst spent two years as a coach with the Oakland A’s before returning to St. Louis. He was on the coaching staff for years and was the interim manager in 1980 and 1990.

His wife of 53 years, the former Mary O’Reilly, died in 1999. Survivors include four children; a brother; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

A beloved figure in St. Louis, Mr. Schoendienst appeared in uniform before games, hitting ground balls to Cardinals players and dispensing years of baseball wisdom. A statue of him stands outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Long after his No. 2 was retired in 1998, Mr. Schoendienst continued to report to work at the ballpark. A sign was installed in the Cardinals’ clubhouse: “His number’s retired. He’s not."