Bob Schmidt

Robert Benjamin Schmidt (April 22, 1933 – May 2, 2015) was an American professional baseball player, a catcher in Major League Baseball for seven seasons (1958–63; 1965) for the San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds, Washington Senators and New York Yankees. He threw and batted right-handed and was listed as tall and .

Major League career Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Schmidt signed with the New York Giants in 1951, and rose methodically through their minor league system. He missed the 1953 and 1954 seasons due to military service, but when he returned to baseball he was selected all-star catcher in successive years in the Double-A Texas League (1956) and the Triple-A American Association (1957). Concurrently the Giants' catchers of the 1950s, Wes Westrum, Ray Katt and Valmy Thomas, were aging or proving ineffective, and the franchise itself transferred to San Francisco.

As a rookie with the 1958 San Francisco Giants, Schmidt was selected to be on the National League team in the 1958 All-Star Game. On August 31, 1958, Schmidt hit a home run and had six runs batted in against future Baseball Hall of Fame member, Sandy Koufax, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, including a first-inning grand slam. But by , Schmidt was sharing the Giants' catching job with left-handed-hitting Hobie Landrith.

In 1961, he was traded with Don Blasingame and Sherman Jones to the Cincinnati Reds for catcher Ed Bailey. In 1962 he was traded along with Dave Stenhouse to the Washington Senators for Marty Keough and Johnny Klippstein. He had a career fielding percentage of .988.