PASSINGS

Johnny Blanchard

Pinch-hit specialist

Johnny Blanchard, 76, who played on five World Series- winning teams with the New York Yankees and was nicknamed “Super-Sub” for his versatility, died Wednesday of a heart attack at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minn.

Born in Minneapolis on Feb. 26, 1933, Blanchard starred in football, basketball and baseball at the city’s Central High School. He was signed by the Yankees as an amateur free agent on July 3, 1951.

He was with the Bronx Bombers from 1959 to 1965 and played several positions, including left and right field, first base and catcher. A pinch-hitting specialist, he holds the record for World Series pinch hits with 10. He hit .345 in the Yankees’ five straight World Series appearances from 1960 through 1964.

His best full season with the Yankees came in 1961, when he hit .305 with 21 home runs and 54 RBIs in 93 games. He hit four straight home runs over a three-game period to tie a major league record.

His Yankee tenure came to an end May 3, 1965, when he was traded with Rollie Sheldon to the Kansas City Athletics for Doc Edwards. He played 52 games with the A’s before finishing the 1965 season with the Milwaukee Braves. He retired at the end of the season.

With the Yankees, he was a close friend of center fielder Mickey Mantle and was one of the honorary pallbearers at his funeral in 1995.

Johnny Donnels

New Orleans photographer

Johnny Donnels, 84, a New Orleans photographer who won acclaim for his pictures of the people and places in the French Quarter, died March 19 of a heart attack at Tulane University Hospital, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Donnels had fallen outside his Desire Street home last week and broken his hip, his close friend Cheron Brylski told the Associated Press.

Donnels had a gallery on St. Peter Street near Jackson Square for more than 50 years. He lived in the Quarter most of his life and was playwright Tennessee Williams’ neighbor in the 1940s.

His work, chronicled in his 1999 book “Johnny Donnels’ IntoPhotography,” has been exhibited at the Kennedy Center, Harvard University, the Ford Times Collection of American Art, the National Academy of Design, the New Orleans Museum of Art and Historic New Orleans Collection.

“He was a good architectural photographer and human interest photographer,” said John Bullard, director of the New Orleans Museum of Art. “He documented life in the French Quarter as well as anyone has.”

Born in New Orleans in 1924, Donnels began his career as a painter after returning to New Orleans following his service in World War II. For a time, he worked as a police sketch artist. In the 1960s, Donnels bartered a painting for a camera, and a career change followed.

Arthur Richman, a longtime executive with the New York Mets and Yankees who urged Yankee owner George Steinbrenner to hire Joe Torre as manager in 1995, died Wednesday in New York. He was 83.

-- times staff and wire reports news.obits@latimes.com