Red Smith (American football/baseball)

Red Smith
Red Smith
Total chances	1
Errors	0
Teams
	New York Giants (1927);

Richard Paul "Red" Smith (May 18, 1904 – March 8, 1978) was an American player and coach in both professional baseball and professional football. A native of Brokaw, Wisconsin, Smith stood 5'9" (175 cm) tall, and weighed 215 pounds (97 kg). A catcher in baseball, he batted and threw right-handed. He played under three of the early 20th century's most famous American sporting coaches—football's Knute Rockne and Curly Lambeau, and baseball's John McGraw.

After attending

minor leagues throughout much of the next decade. In the autumn of 1927, he also turned professional in football with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, where he played five games. In the NFL, he also played for the New York football Giants and the New York football Yankees

, appearing in 37 total games and playing in the offensive backfield and as a guard.

Smith continued as a coach in both sports after his playing career ended. He was the head baseball coach at Georgetown University (1930) at Seton Hall University (1931–1932) and an assistant coach for the Packers and Giants from 1936 to 1944.

In baseball, he

American Association (1939–40; 1943–44). In 1945 he returned to the majors as a coach for the pennant-winning Chicago Cubs, working under Charlie Grimm, who had been his skipper in Milwaukee. Smith served on the Cub coaching staff through 1949. He then returned to the minor-league Brewers as the team's business manager, briefly filling in as manager in 1952, and moved with the franchise to Toledo, Ohio, when it became the Toledo Sox in 1953. He left baseball in 1955, when the Toledo franchise moved to Wichita, Kansas

. He then worked in the brewery industry.

Smith died in a suburb of Toledo in 1978 at age 73. Every January a fund raising banquet named in Smith's honor is held in Appleton, Wisconsin.

References

Spink, J.G. Taylor, and Rickart, Paul A., eds., The Baseball Register. St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1949.

External links

Career statistics and player information from Pro Football Reference ·
Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors)