Nelson Linwood Stein, a retired accountant for Eddie's Supermarkets and a singer, died of heart failure Wednesday at Hanover Hospital in Hanover, Pa. He was 87.
Mr. Stein, a former longtime Rosedale resident, had lived since September at the Brethren Home Community in New Oxford, Pa.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Northeast Baltimore, he attended Polytechnic Institute. He earned his General Educational Development certificate in 1947.
During the 1930s, he played minor league baseball in Pokomoke, Va., but returned to Baltimore to earn more money working as an accountant for Bethlehem Steel Corp. and playing in sandlot leagues at old Oriole Park.
He played center field for the Chesapeake Baking Co. team, winners of the 1938 Maryland Amateur Baseball Association championship. The team later became known as A.C. Paramount and moved into the American Baseball Congress semiprofessional league. Mr. Stein drove in the winning runs in an Eastern Seaboard championship game, relatives said.
During World War II, he served as a storekeeper aboard Navy supply ships stationed in New York and the South Pacific. He was discharged in 1946 and returned to Baltimore.
Mr. Stein was employed as an accountant at Eddie's Supermarkets from 1947 until retiring in 1980.
In 1974, Mr. Stein had heart-bypass surgery at St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee, before any Maryland hospital would perform the procedure. Physicians believed that he was the state's longest-surviving bypass patient, family members said.
From 1980 until 2000, he volunteered at Franklin Square Hospital Center, where he sold newspapers to patients.
A tenor, Mr. Stein studied voice at the Peabody Conservatory and was a former active member of the Good Time Singers, now the Senior Star Showcase. He performed several lead roles with the group during the 1980s, including in Oklahoma and Showboat.
He was a member of Middle River Baptist Church and a founding member in 1955 of Hazelwood Baptist Church.
An avid golfer, he played at Rocky Point and Clifton Park golf courses, and in 1993 shot a 77, his age at the time.
Services were held Saturday.
Survivors include his wife of 61 years, the former Dorothy June Harrison; four daughters, June Louise Johnson of Stone Mountain, Ga., Linda Mary Civitarese of Freeland, Dorothy Jane McKenny of Lawrenceville, Ga., and Susan Lynn Ritzel of Forest Hill; two sisters, Audrey Stein O'Keefe and Doris Levy, both of Baltimore; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.