Stan Lopata
Ballplayers Wounded in Combat
| Date and Place of Birth: | September 12, 1925 Delray, MI |
| Date and Place of Death: | June 15, 2013 Philadelphia, PA |
| Baseball Experience: | Major League |
| Position: | Catcher |
| Rank: | Private First-Class |
| Military Unit: | 94th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (Mechanized), 14th Armored Division US Army |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Stanley E. Lopata was born on September 12, 1925, in Delray, Michigan,
where he excelled in baseball and basketball at Southwestern High School
in Detroit. Lopata graduated from high school in 1943, and worked out
with the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians and Brooklyn Dodgers during
the summer, before entering military service with the Army in December
1943. Assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky, he played some baseball there
before going overseas with the 94th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron
(Mechanized) of the 14th Armored Division. Private First-Class Lopata was in
Europe for 18 months and was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart
for wounds received in combat.
When the war ended, Lopata played on the 9th Armored Division basketball
squad playing against such stars as Ewell Blackwell, Bill Towery and
Milt Ticco. Returning home in late 1945, he played semi-pro basehall
before he was signed by the Phillies to a Utica Blue Sox contract and
was optioned to the Terra Haute Phillies of the Class B Three-I League.
The 20-year-old catcher played 67 games and batted .292, earning
promotion to Utica in the Class A Eastern League for 1947. Lopata played
115 games with the pennant-winning Blue Sox and batted .325, earning the
team's MVP title. He advanced to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Class
AAA International League in 1948 – just one step from the major leagues
- and batted .279 with 15 home runs in 110 games, joining the Phillies
for six games in September.
Lopata remained with the Phillies – primarily as a back-up catcher from
1949 through 1958. His best season was 1956, when he played a
career-high 146 games and batted .267 with 32 home runs and 95 RBIs, and
was selected to the National League All-Star team for the second time.
In March 1959, the Phillies traded 33-year-old Lopata to the Milwaukee
Braves where he played a further two seasons before retiring. He worked
for a time for a steel plant in Dearborn, Michigan, then moved to
Philadelphia to work for IBM and, later, as a salesman and then vice
president for a concrete materials company before retiring in 1986.
Lopata was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1988,
and the National Polish-American Hall of Fame in 1997. He passed away on
June 15, 2013, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia, aged 87.
Date Added December 25, 2017
Can you add more information to this biography and help make it the best online resource for this player? Contact us by email
Read Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice Through The Years - an online year-by-year account of military related deaths of ballplayers
Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice is associated with Baseball Almanac
Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice is proud to be sponsored by
