LeJohn devoted most of his life to baseball
?Baseball was Don LeJohn’s life and he devoted the better part of his life to the sport he loved.
LeJohn was born May 13, 1934. in Daisytown, Pa. He attended California High School and was a four-year starter in baseball. He was inducted into the Trojans’ Hall of Fame in 1967. He honed his baseball skills playing American Legion baseball in California and toiled for Bentleyville, Vestaburg and Perryopolis in the old Mon Valley League.
Jimmy Russell of Fayette City, former major league outfielder, offered him a pact with the then Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 and Don grabbed the opportunity to play for pay.
That’s when “Ducky,” as LeJohn was known, began his long odyssey through minor league baseball.
He played in 1954 with Shawnee, hitting .359, and was on the Sooner State League All-Star team. He played at Great Falls in 1955 where he was also on the All-Star team, and at Wichita Falls, hitting .345 in 1956. He was in Macon in 1957, and in 1958 he was at Des Moines. He moved to Asheville in 1959. He spent two seasons in Atlanta, 1960 and 1961. In 1962, he played for the Omaha Dodgers of the American Association, managed by Danny Ozark. He was an All-Star in 1964 with Albuquerque.
In 1965, he was hitting .395 at Albuquerque as a player/coach, in his 12th year in the minors, when he was finally called up to the major league Dodgers.
The phone call came one June morning at 10:30 in Austin, Tex., as LeJohn recalled in a newspaper article at the time.
“It was Roy Hartsfield, his manager at Albuquerque,” LeJohn said, “and he asked me how I would like to play in the majors. I figured he was kidding so I asked him what time he wanted to have breakfast?
“How did I feel? After playing 12 years in the minors you just don’t have much hope left . . . so I guess I was sort of shocked.
“The most I ever expected, and what I actually was hoping for, was a job as a minor league manager or coach.”
Uniontown Herald-Standard sports editor Tod Trent wrote this in his column when LeJohn made his debut with the Dodgers: “They didn’t even know his first name. The early wire stories out of Chicago tagged him Del but it didn’t make any difference to Don LeJohn.
“Across the front of his uniform it said Los Angeles and Donald Everett LeJohn had just played his first major league game after a 12-year apprenticeship in the minors.
“What’s more his debut was in true storybook fashion as he led the Dodgers to a victory in the second game of a doubleheader for a split with the Cubs.
“He came to the plate for the first time in the second inning with two mates aboard, two outs and promptly singled in the first Dodger run of the contest. The score was tied at 3-3 when he came to bat in the fourth inning and he lashed his second straight hit, this one a single off Billy Hoeft. A sacrifice, ground out and double brought him home with the run that won the game.
“That’s how a 31-year-old rookie who grew up in Daisytown and graduated at California High School arrived on the major league scene.”
At the time of his call up most baseball observers didn’t have LeJohn on their radar.
“This year they made me player-coach at Albuquerque,” LeJohn said at the time, “and I figured it was a good break.”
By mid-June, after 85 games, he was leading the Texas League in batting (.393) and the Dodgers, with John Kennedy unable to do the job at the plate, needed a third baseman, so the call went to LeJohn.
LeJohn’s first week in the majors was like a Hollywood script. He knocked in the winning run in his first game and by the end of the week was batting .357, which wasn’t bad for a guy who hadn’t seen a major league park until the Dodgers beckoned.
He also was thrust into a pennant race. The Dodgers finished the regular-season with a 97-65 record, which earned them the National League pennant by just two games over their archrivals, the San Francisco Giants.
“The pressure doesn’t bother me,” he said. “It works in reverse and makes me play better.
“I know that if I have a good year and then have a good spring, maybe I can make this club next year.”
The accent was on “maybe” because, if nothing else, 12 years in the minors had made a realist of LeJohn.
“I never thought of quitting,” he said, “if it came down to playing baseball or being out of it, I’d stay with Albuquerque the rest of my life.”
In 34 games with the Dodgers in 1965, LeJohn batted .234 with seven RBIs. The Dodgers defeated the Minnesota Twins in the World Series and LeJohn struck out in one at-bat as a pinch hitter in the World Series. That was LeJohn’s only season in the major leagues.
Years later LeJohn noted that his biggest thrill was his appearance in the 1965 World Series.
“That’s what every baseball player dreams about,” said LeJohn.
LeJohn finished his full-time playing days in 1971. Even before that, he had starting managing in 1967. He started managing as a player/manager with the Tri-City Atoms in the Northwest League in 1967.
Longtime Dodgers manager Walter Alson had high praise for LeJohn as a manager back in 1967.
“Naturally, the Dodgers must think a lot of him,” Alston told the Valley Independent. “He’s a keen student of the game and knows our organization and our requirements. He wouldn’t be with us if someone didn’t think he could help us.”
The teams LeJohn managed were: Tri-City Atoms (1967-1968), Bakersfield Dodgers (1969-1972), Waterbury Dodgers (1973-1976), San Antonio Dodgers (1977-1982), Lodi Dodgers (1983), and Bakersfield Dodgers (1984, 1986).
He finished with a career managerial record of 1,243-1,238, and he won two league championships. He was a minor league manager and scout for over 20 years with the Dodgers.
LeJohn was inducted into the Mid Mon Valley All Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. He was thrilled with his induction.
“I wondered how Stan Musial felt when he was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame,” LeJohn said in 1998. “Monessen is my Cooperstown. I will cherish this moment for the rest of my life.”
LeJohn passed away at the age of 70 on February 25, 2005.
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” columns appear in the Tuesday editions of HeraldStandard.com. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10?a.m. to noon on Saturdays.