Shades of Beethoven

Schroeder from the peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz.

He is distinguished by his precocious skill at playing the piano, as well as by his love of classical music and the composer Ludwig van Beethoven in particular. Schroeder is also the catcher on Charlie Brown Baseball team and the object of Lucy van Pelt's unrequited love.

After Linus and Snoopy, Schroeder is probably Charlie Brown's closest friend; he once angrily denounced Violet for giving Charlie Brown a used valentine well after Valentine's Day had come and gone (only to be undercut when Charlie Brown eagerly accepted it), and he is one of the few baseball players who has any respect for Charlie Brown as a manager (although he is as capable of ire at Charlie Brown's poor performance as anyone else, such instances are few and far between).