PASSINGS: George ‘Bo’ Strickland, Henri Salmide, Edith M. Roberts, Robert McElwaine

George ‘Bo’ Strickland

Shortstop in ’54 Series

George “Bo” Strickland, 84, a shortstop who played 10 years in the major leagues and started for the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series, died Sunday in his hometown of New Orleans, according to the Greenwood Funeral Home.

Strickland played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1950 to ’52 and the Indians from ’52 to ‘57, and again from ’59 to ’60. In 1954, the Indians won 111 games during the regular season but were swept by the New York Giants, led by Willie Mays, in the World Series.

Regarded as a defensive specialist, Strickland led big-league shortstops with a .976 fielding percentage in 1955. He shared the major league mark for shortstops involved in double plays in a game (five) in 1952 and led American League shortstops in double plays in 1953 and in fielding in 1955.

He finished his career with a fielding average of .965 and participated in 558 double plays. Overall he had a .224 batting average, 36 home runs and 284 runs batted in.

After his playing days, Strickland twice served as Cleveland’s interim manager, in 1964 and 1966, compiling a 33-39 record.

Born in New Orleans on Jan. 10, 1926, Strickland served in the Navy during World War II.

Henri Salmide

WWII soldier saved port

Henri Salmide, 92, a former German officer who helped save the French port of Bordeaux from destruction by Nazi forces in World War II, died Tuesday, city officials said.

The Germans had a plan to blow up the Bordeaux port before they retreated toward the end of the war.

About 4,000 fuses needed for the plan were stored in the city’s munitions depot. Salmide, who was born Heinz Stahlschmidt and was then a junior officer in the German navy, defied his superiors and blew up the depot, rendering the fuses useless and saving the port, said Alain Moga, the deputy mayor of Bordeaux.

Hunted by the Gestapo and the French police, Salmide hid with Moga’s grandmother, becoming a family friend, the deputy mayor said.

After the war, he remained in France and was naturalized Henri Salmide. He married a French woman and stayed in Bordeaux for the rest of his life. He was decorated with the French Legion of Honor in 2000.

Edith M. Roberts, a Pasadena activist who served as a board member and president of the Pasadena Symphony Assn. and was a longtime supporter of Caltech, where her husband John D. “Jack” Roberts is an emeritus professor of chemistry, died Sunday at her home in Pasadena after suffering a stroke, the university announced. She was 91.

Robert McElwaine, a former Hollywood publicist at MGM who worked as entertainer Danny Kaye’s personal manager in the 1950s and went on to become an automobile industry lobbyist, died Jan. 31 in Washington, D.C., his family announced. He was 86.

-- times staff and wire reports

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