Richard Alan Scheinblum (November 5, 1942 – May 10, 2021), nicknamed "Shane", Whiting, Robert. ''You Gotta Have Wa'' (Vintage Departures, 1989), pp. 82-83. was an American professional

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB) player. In 1971, he won the American Association Most Valuable Player Award after hitting a league-leading and Triple-A-record .388. In 1972 he was named to the American League

All-Star An all-star team is a group of people all having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and has been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry. Sports "All-star" as a sport ...

team, and batted .300. He played for the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. Since , the team ...

, Washington Senators,

Kansas City Royals The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The team ...

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...

California Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division. Since 1966, the team has pl ...

, and

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Centra ...

. He also played two seasons in Japan for the

Hiroshima Toyo Carp The is a professional baseball team based in Hiroshima, Japan. They compete in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. The team is primarily owned by the Matsuda family, led by , who is a descendant of Mazda founder Jujiro Matsuda ...

Early life

Scheinblum was Jewish, and was born in

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, or Midtown West on real estate listings, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, ...

in Manhattan, New York City to Fred and Lee (born in Ukraine; died in 1949) Scheinblum, and grew up in Fort Apache in the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

in New York City."Q/A with Richie Scheinblum: All-Star with Royals; lessons from playing for Ted Williams" - Jewish Baseball Museum
/ref> He was very proud that he was one of only (as he recalled it) six Jewish major leaguers at the time, along with Art Shamsky,

Mike Epstein Michael Peter Epstein (born April 4, 1943), nicknamed "Super Jew", is an American former professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Senators / Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, and California Angels of Major League Ba ...

, Steve Stone,

Ron Blomberg Ronald Mark Blomberg (born August 23, 1948), nicknamed "Boomer", is an American former professional baseball player and minor league manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a designated hitter, first baseman, and right fielder. He played ...

, and

Ken Holtzman Kenneth Dale Holtzman (November 3, 1945 – April 15, 2024) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He was a left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball from through for the Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, ...

. His father remarried and the family moved to

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from portions of Ridgefield Township and the remaining portions of Engle ...

, when he was 10 years old. He attended Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, where he played basketball and soccer, in addition to baseball. He was a 1964 graduate of C.W. Post College, now known as LIU Post, with a degree in Business Administration. There, he was a three-sport athlete, competing in baseball, basketball, and track and field.LIU Post Pioneers Mobile – LIU Post Athletic Hall of Fame
/ref> In baseball he batted .415 in 1964, and set the C.W. Post records in career triples (12) and batting average (.395). He was inducted in the college's sports Hall of Fame in 2005.

Baseball career

In 1964 he played for the Burlington Indians and hit .309 (9th in the

Carolina League The Carolina League is a Minor League Baseball league which has operated along the Atlantic Coast of the United States since 1945. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 unti ...

), in 1965 he played for the Salinas Indians and hit .318 (9th in the league) with a .460 slugging percentage (8th in the league) and had 21 doubles (9th in the league), and in 1965 he played for the Pawtucket Indians and hit .263.">"Richie Scheinblum Minor & Japanese Leagues Statistics & History" , Baseball-Reference.com
/ref> He made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians in 1967, and hit .318, as during the rest of the season he played for the

Portland Beavers The Portland Beavers was the name of separate minor league baseball teams, which represented Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific Coast League (PCL). The team was established in 1903, the first year of the PCL. Franchise history Many baseball teams h ...

and hit .291 with 77 runs (5th in the league), 25 doubles (7th in the league), and 16 home runs (8th in the league). During the 1966–67 offseason, Scheinblum played in the Nicaraguan Professional Baseball League and led his team, Cinco Estrellas, to a championship on January 22, 1967. After the game, however, he and teammate Jim Weaver hid under the bed in Scheinblum's hotel room while bullets flew and the Nicaraguan National Guard killed between dozens and hundreds of anti-government demonstrators near the hotel room. In 1968 he played again for Portland, and hit .304 (9th in the league) with a .479 slugging percentage and 75 RBIs (7th in the league), and in 55 at bats for the Cleveland Indians batted .218, followed by .186 in limited action the following year. In 1970 he batted .337 (5th in the league)/.424 (leading the league)/.576 (second in the league to Cesar Cedeno) for the Class AAA Wichita Aeros, leading the league in runs scored (79), hits (155), and RBIs (84), and second in the league in doubles (32), home runs (24), walks (72), and sacrifice flies (6). Playing for the Denver Bears in 1971, he won the American Association Most Valuable Player Award after he hit a league-leading and Triple-A-record .388 with a league-leading .490

on-base percentage In baseball statistics, on-base percentage (OBP) measures how frequently a batting (baseball), batter reaches base (baseball), base. An official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic since 1984, it is sometimes referred to as on-base average (OBA ...

, 83 runs (third in the league), .725

slugging percentage In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at-bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at-bats for a given player, an ...

(leading the league), 145 hits (third in the league), 31

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

s (tied for the league lead), 10 triples (leading the league), 25

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the Baseball (ball), ball is hit in such a way that the batting (baseball), batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safe (baseball), safely in one play without any error ( ...

s (second in the league), and 108 RBIs. Scheinblum played

outfield The outfield, in cricket, baseball and softball is the area of the field of play further from the batsman or batter than the infield. In association football, the outfield players are positioned outside the goal area. In bat and ball games ...

in the major leagues from 1965 to 1974. He was a switch-hitter. His best year was 1972, when he hit .300 (sixth in the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...

) with an

of .383 (fifth in the league), 8 homers, and 66 RBIs for the Royals. He was named to the American League

team, and was the Royals' Player of the Month in August. Following the Munich massacre in September of that year, Scheinblum wore a black armband in memory of the slain Israeli athletes. He later said, "I wore the emblematic black band ... not only because they were Jewish athletes, but because they were human beings". Scheinblum was traded along with Roger Nelson to the

for Hal McRae and Wayne Simpson on December 1, 1972.Durso, Joseph. "A's Send Epstein to Rangers; Scheinblum, Nelson to Reds," ''The New York Times'', Saturday, December 2, 1972.
Retrieved April 12, 2020 He batted .307 with a .402 on base percentage in 1973; after a slow start for the Cincinnati Reds, he was traded to the California Angels, for whom he batted .328 with an on base percentage of .418. He hit .263 with 13 homers and 127 RBIs in his career. In 1976, after leaving Major League Baseball, he played for Japan's

in 1976, batting .307 (8th in the Japan Central League) with a slugging percentage of .501 and 20 home runs.

Retirement

After his career, ended he went on to live in

Palm Harbor, Florida Palm Harbor is a census-designated place (CDP) and Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the CDP had a population of 61,366. Culture Palm Harbor is located north of down ...

. , he was working as a salesman with a promotional products company. He died May 10, 2021, after a long illness.

Family

His son, Monte Scheinblum, hit a golf ball 329 yards, 13 inches, into a 20 mile-per-hour wind to win the 1992 U.S. National Long Driving Championship, and was also the world long driving champion that year.

References

External links