Schoendienst, "Red" (Albert F.)
Baseball
b. Feb. 2, 1923, Germantown, IL
An outstanding fielder at second base, Schoendienst was the ideal number two hitter. A switch-hitter who choked up on the bat, he was skilled at the hit and run from either side of the plate and he was also an excellent bunter.
He joined the St. Louis Cardinals in 1945 and batted .281 for a pennant winning team in 1946, when he led the league's second basemen in fielding percentage for the first of six times. Schoendienst hit only .233 in the Cardinals' seven-game World Series win over the Boston Red Sox, but he scored 3 runs.
He led the league in doubles with 43 in 1950 and batted a career high .342 in 1953, when he hit 15 home runs and scored 107 runs. During the 1956 season, the Cardinals traded him to the New York Giants.
Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Braves had been searching in vain for a second baseman for several years. They acquired Schoendienst early in the 1957 season and won their first pennant. Schoendienst led the league with 200 hits and had a .309 average, and he batted .278 when Milwaukee beat the New York Yankees in a seven-game series.
Milwaukee won the pennant again in 1958. Bothered by illness and injury, Schoendienst hit only .262 in 105 games that season, but he batted .300 and scored 5 runs in the World Series, a seven-game loss to the Yankees.
Shortly after the season ended, it was discovered that Schoendienst had tuberculosis. He spent most of 1959 in treatment, playing in only 5 games, and returned as a part-time player in 1960. The Braves traded him back to St. Louis in 1961. He became a coach in 1963, his last season as a player, when he had only 5 at-bats, all as a pinch-hitter.
Schoendienst was named St. Louis manager in 1965. He guided the Cardinals to two consecutive pennants in 1967, when they won the World Series, and 1968. He was replaced after a fifth-place finish in 1976. After coaching for the Oakland Athletics for two years, Schoendienst returned to the Cardinals as a coach. He served as interim manager for parts of the 1980 and 1990 seasons.
In 2,216 games, Schoendienst had a .289 average on 2,449 hits, including 427 doubles,78 triples, and 84 home runs. He scored 1,223 runs and had 773 RBI. As a manager, he had a 1,041-955 record for a .522 winning percentage.