Meet One of Our Knight Authors: Rob Sheinkopf ’85

Tell us a little about yourself!

Former Director of Admissions at UCF, Master’s degree in Counseling, 1985, retired after a 40 year career in college admissions.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve been writing since the 1980’s, presented academic papers on baseball at various professional conferences, inspired by UCF History Professor Emeritus Richard Crepeau, and wrote my first book, (“Hey Mom, wanna have a catch?”) published February 2025, second book to be released December 2025 (Baseball Imposters-the dark side of fandom).

What s your writing process? What inspires your writing?

Baseball is at the heart of it, but not analytics or history. I’m most interested in the human side, personal stories, from fans and the players themselves. My Master’s thesis was “An analysis of factors influencing second-career decision-making among retired major league baseball players, prior to free agency”. I interviewed 53 former major leaguers about their second career choices as they contemplated retirement in their 30’s.

Who are some of your favorite authors or books?

W.P. Kinsella, Jane Leavy, Peter Golenbock, Jon Meacham, Donald Hall, David Halberstam, Robert Creamer, David Sedaris, Jonathan Eig, Robert Caro, and David McCullough.

If UCF had a time machine, what moment on campus would you go back to?

I first came to UCF as a graduate student in 1973, got a job as a clerk in the Registrar’s Office. It was a wonderful time to be at FTU, with about 6,000 students, we all knew each other… there wasn’t much traffic, but we had our share of palmetto bugs, high humidity, and only 414 students lived on campus… we had no idea what the next 50 years would bring. I literally get lost when I visit the campus.

Anything else?! What are you currently working on right now?

I’ve been marketing my book “Hey Mom, wanna have a catch?” since it came out last Spring. It has several UCF connections… it’s an anthology with 49 stories, eight of which are mine, and includes stories from former UCF President Steve Altman, former UCF Provost Rich Astro, History Professor Emeritus Dick Crepeau, former Oakland A’s broadcaster, and 1984 UCF alumnus Vince Cotroneo… My new book, “BASEBALL IMPOSTERS – the dark side of fandom” will be out in December, and I’ll be traveling for a few months trying to sell the book, which will be a labor of love. This book represents over 40 years of research.

After that, I was thinking about revisiting the 53 former big league baseball players I interviewed in the early 1980’s for my thesis, and following up with them on their lives, but I found only 6 were still alive, and then Davey Johnson died last week, so we’re down to 5 (maybe fewer by the time you read this). Then I saw a good friend who has written some pretty terrific baseball books and he told me he was writing a book on ‘career transitions for baseball players’ so that was that. You got any ideas for me?