John Leovich

John Joseph Leovich

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0½", Weight 200 lb.
• School Oregon State University
• High School Lakeside School
• Debut May 1, 1941
• Final Game May 1, 1941
• Born May 5, 1918 in Portland, OR USA
• Died February 3, 2000 in Lincoln City, OR USA

BR page

Biographical Information

John Leovich was a catcher for four years (1941-1946), one in college, one in the Major Leagues (1941) and three in the minors (1941-1942 and 1946), losing three years to the military. He served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II (1943-1945) (EOC).

Leovich was born on May 5, 1918, in Portland, OR. Leovich was 22 years old when he broke into the big leagues for his only game in MLB on May 1, 1941, with the Philadelphia Athletics. He attended Lakeside School in Seattle, WA and also played for Oregon State University in 1940. He died at age 81 in Lincoln City, OR and is buried at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland.

Sources

Principal sources for John Leovich include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs {{{WW}}} (WW), old Baseball Registers {{{BR}}} (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN {{{DAG}}} (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) {{{MORE}}} and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Further Reading

• Richard Tellis: Once Around The Bases, Triumph Books, Chicago, 1998, pp. 37-43.

Related Sites

• John Leovich at the SABR Bio Project