| Richie Scheinblum | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Outfielder | |
| Born:(1942-11-05)November 5, 1942 New York City, New York, U.S. | |
| Died: May 10, 2021(2021-05-10) (aged 78) Palm Harbor, Florida, U.S. | |
Batted: Switch Threw: Right | |
| Professional debut | |
| MLB: September 1, 1965, for the Cleveland Indians | |
| NPB: April 5, 1975, for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp | |
| Last appearance | |
| MLB: September 21, 1974, for the St. Louis Cardinals | |
| NPB: October 21, 1976, for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .263 |
| Home runs | 13 |
| Runs batted in | 127 |
| NPB statistics | |
| Batting average | .295 |
| Home runs | 33 |
| Runs batted in | 118 |
Stats atBaseball Reference  | |
| Teams | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
Richard Alan Scheinblum (November 5, 1942 – May 10, 2021), nicknamed "Shane",[1] was an American professionalMajor League Baseball (MLB) player.
In 1971, he won theAmerican Association Most Valuable Player Award after hitting a league-leading andTriple-A-record .388. In 1972 he was named to the American LeagueAll-Star team, and batted .300. He played for theCleveland Indians,Washington Senators,Kansas City Royals,Cincinnati Reds,California Angels, andSt. Louis Cardinals. He also played two seasons in Japan for theHiroshima Toyo Carp.
Scheinblum was Jewish, and was born inHell's Kitchen in Manhattan, New York City to Fred and Lee (born in Ukraine; died in 1949) Scheinblum, and grew up in Fort Apache in theSouth Bronx in New York City.[2] He was very proud that he was one of only (as he recalled it) six Jewish major leaguers at the time, along withArt Shamsky,Mike Epstein,Steve Stone,Ron Blomberg, andKen Holtzman.[2] His father remarried and the family moved toEnglewood, New Jersey, when he was 10 years old.[citation needed] He attendedDwight Morrow High School in Englewood, where he played basketball and soccer, in addition to baseball.[3]
He was a 1964 graduate ofC.W. Post College, now known as LIU Post, with a degree in Business Administration.[4] There, he was a three-sport athlete, competing in baseball, basketball, and track and field.[5] In baseball he batted .415 in 1964, and set the C.W. Post records in career triples (12) and batting average (.395).[5] He was inducted in the college's sports Hall of Fame in 2005.[5]
In 1964 he played for theBurlington Indians and hit .309 (9th in theCarolina League), in 1965 he played for theSalinas 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 thePawtucket Indians and hit .263.[6] 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 thePortland Beavers and hit .291 with 77 runs (5th in the league), 25 doubles (7th in the league), and 16 home runs (8th in the league).[6]
During the 1966–67 offseason, Scheinblum played in theNicaraguan Professional Baseball League and led his team to a championship on January 22, 1967. After the game, however, he and teammateJim Weaver hid under the bed in Scheinblum's hotel room while bullets flew and theNicaraguan National Guard killed between dozens and hundreds of anti-government demonstrators near the hotel room.[7][8][9]
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), but in 55 at bats batted .218 for Cleveland, followed by .186 in limited action the following year.[6] In 1970 he batted .337 (5th in the league)/.424 (leading the league)/.576 (second in the league toCesar Cedeno) for the Class AAAWichita 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).[6][10]
Playing for theDenver Bears in 1971, he won theAmerican Association Most Valuable Player Award after he hit a league-leading andTriple-A-record .388 with a league-leading .490on-base percentage, 83 runs (third in the league), .725slugging percentage (leading the league), 145 hits (third in the league), 31doubles (tied for the league lead), 10triples (leading the league), 25home runs (second in the league), and 108RBIs.[11][12][13]
Scheinblum playedoutfield in the major leagues from 1965 to 1974. He was aswitch-hitter.[14][15]
His best year was 1972, when he hit .300 (sixth in theAmerican League) with anon-base percentage of .383 (fifth in the league), 8 homers, and 66 RBIs for the Royals.[16][17] He was named to the American LeagueAll-Star team, and was the Royals' Player of the Month in August.[16][18] Following theMunich 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".[19]
Scheinblum was traded along withRoger Nelson to theCincinnati Reds forHal McRae andWayne Simpson on December 1, 1972.[20] 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.[2][6]
He hit .263 with 13 homers and 127 RBIs in his career.[14][15]
In 1976, after leaving Major League Baseball, he played for Japan'sHiroshima Toyo Carp in 1976, batting .307 (8th in theJapan Central League) with a slugging percentage of .501 and 20 home runs.[2][6]
After his career, ended he went on to live inPalm Harbor, Florida.[5] As of 2016[update], he was working as a salesman with a promotional products company.[2] He died May 10, 2021, after a long illness.
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,[21][22] and was also the world long driving champion that year.[23]