Greater Washington
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

Milton Kronheim

Milton Kronheim

Sport: Baseball
Category: Athlete
Primary Team: null
Year Inducted: 2003

Kronheim was born in D.C. in 1888. In 1903, at the age of 15, he opened a saloon. During the Prohibition era, he was a bail bondsman, after which he returned to the liquor business as a wholesaler, where he remained active until his death in 1986- one month shy of his 81h birthday. Daily visits to the gym for handball and a workout were a ritual with Sunday mornings being reserved for baseball. For more than 50 years he would pitch nine innings in a choose-up game played with all ages. He played well into his 80s. A true love for people, racial differences were of no consequence to this Renaissance man. In the very early years of the civil rights movement, he placed an insert in all correspondences picturing a group of young white boys and one African American boy on a baseball field choosing teams. The caption was, ‘What difference does it make – can he hit?” Kronheim was not afraid to live up to his convictions.