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.
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 managed in three Class D minor leagues—the Bi-State League, KITTY League and Wisconsin State League—from 1936 to 1938 and in 1941–42. He also served as a coach for the Milwaukee Brewers of the 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.