Hank Schenz
Henry “Hank” Schenz was an American baseball player who played as a second baseman. He was born on April 11, 1919, in New Richmond, Ohio, and died on May 12, 1988, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He batted and threw right-handed and was 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing about 175 pounds.
Schenz’s professional baseball career lasted 14 seasons, with time in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs (1946–1949), Pittsburgh Pirates (1950–1951), and New York Giants (1951). He made his MLB debut on September 18, 1946, with the Cubs, and played his last major league game on September 13, 1951, with the Giants. In the majors, he posted a .247 batting average, hit 2 home runs, and had 24 RBIs in 207 games.
His early career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he returned to baseball, starting in the minor leagues with the Tulsa Oilers in 1946, where he hit .333 and was named the league MVP. In 1948 he spent most of the season with the Cubs, his best year at the major league level, appearing in 86 games and hitting .261. In 1949 Chicago traded him to the Dodgers; he spent that year in the minors with St. Paul before the Pirates purchased his contract in 1950. He served as a utility infielder for the Pirates through mid-1951, when he was claimed by the Giants. He appeared in eight regular-season games for the 1951 Giants, mostly as a pinch runner, and then spent more time in the minors, including a 1955 stint as player-manager in Tulsa.
A notable and controversial part of his story involves the sign-stealing era of the 1951 Giants. Schenz owned a telescope said to have been used to steal signs from opposing teams, and it is tied to the Giants’ late-season surge and to Bobby Thomson’s famous “Shot Heard Round the World.” The details emerged in later interviews and reporting and remain a topic of debate.
Hank Schenz died in Cincinnati at age 69.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:21 (CET).