MLB players of eastern european descent?

[dominik]

Have there been MLB players of eastern european descent(not only direct from there also guys from the early immigration waves in the US in the 19th century)?
For example many great players are of german descent(wagner, gehrig, ruth, mauer, greinke...) or italian names(di maggio, piazza...) but I can't recall any eastern european names. Of course there are less eastern european immigrants, but there was still a fair share of e. european immigrants. So are there any players of eastern european descent?(think about names that end with ...ov, ...ik or ...ski)

[Paul Wendt]

Some Germans and some Jews immigrated to the United States from eastern Europe. I suppose that the question means to skip them and also to skip Greeks and Turks and Armenians and Finns and Estonians, leaving Slavic peoples and their neighbors between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Caspian Seas (Slavs, Balts, Magyar Hungarians, Romanians & Moldavans, Albanians, Georgians, Armenians --but Armenians emigrated to America mainly from Turkey and further South).

There have been "many" players of such eastern European descent in the major leagues, although many fewer than German-Americans.

Some fairly well known
Elmer Valo
Lou Novikoff
Harry and Stan Coveleski (born Kowalewski)
Stan Musial (born Stanisław Franciszek and called Stashu by his Polish immigrant father Lukasz --wikipedia)
Whitey Kurowski

There were other teammates of Musial and Kurowski on the 1946 St. Louis Cardinals (at bb-ref).

Steve Bedrosian is Armenian-American.


For birthplaces see MLB players by place of birth at baseball-reference. It would be interesting to know which of the foreign-born players during are the sons of US diplomats, military personnel, and civilian employees of the armed forces --the children of the empire.

[Paul Wendt]

Baseball is not played much by natives of eastern Europe and there are not many US military bases there.

In contrast basketball is a national sport at least in Lithuania and former Yugoslavia, and the NBA is "full of" players born in eastern Europe.

Basketball-reference lists four players born in Georgia.
Those listings by birthplace also show about forty in ex-Yugoslavia, eight in Lithuania, two in Latvia, six in Russia.

[Dalkowski110]

Steve Dalkowski was/is second generation Polish. His father had been born in Poland, I know, and I'm fairly sure his mother was, as well.

[dominik]

Baseball is not played much by natives of eastern Europe and there are not many US military bases there.

In contrast basketball is a national sport at least in Lithuania and former Yugoslavia, and the NBA is "full of" players born in eastern Europe.

Basketball-reference lists four players born in Georgia.
Those listings by birthplace also show about forty in ex-Yugoslavia, eight in Lithuania, two in Latvia, six in Russia.

of course but I was also talking about eastern europeans ho immigrated several generations ago. those should have adopted the american lifestyle, shouldn't they?

[DaClyde]

Steve Dalkowski was/is second generation Polish. His father had been born in Poland, I know, and I'm fairly sure his mother was, as well.

What happened to all the Polish players in baseball? It seems in the 1950s-1960s, the sport was littered with them, but you don't really see many Polish names in baseball anymore.

[Rally Monkey]

What happened to all the Polish players in baseball? It seems in the 1950s-1960s, the sport was littered with them, but you don't really see many Polish names in baseball anymore.

In some people's minds, one is enough. I love the White Sox, though, so I wish there were more.

[beisbolfiebre]

A couple of LA Dodgers come to mind:

Dick Tracewski & Ron Perronowski

[westsidegrounds]

Eddie Waitkus

Ray Narleski

Rip Repulski

Andy Pafko

Andy Seminick

Joe Vosmik

Greg Luzinski

and Ted Kluszewski! Who could forget Big Klu!


there do seem to be fewer right now, for some reason.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Excuse me? Al" The Mad Hungarian" Hraboski anyone?

[westsidegrounds]

Cass Michaels

[ian2813]

Al Simmons was Polish. His birth name was Aloys Szymanski.

[BigRon]

Jack Quinn- born Johannes Pajkos- was a fine pitcher who won 247 ML games. He was born in the Hungarian section of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

[EmergencyCatcher]

Johnny Pesky, perhaps? If I remember correctly his name was originally something like Peskowicz, or Peskovich or something of the sort.

[jerseygary]

Frankie Zak, 1944-46 Pirates and 1944 All-Star was 2nd generation Polish decent. As a side note, the town of Kutno in the center of Poland has Stan Musial Stadium and is home to European Little League. I've been there and it is a huge complex that hosts the championships every year.

Other players of Eastern European decent:
Joe Medwick (Hungarian)
Johnny Podres (Polish)
Pete Appleton (Polish and played the first few seasons as Peter Jablonowski)