Johnny Sosh

A1936 graduate of Reading High School, was an outstanding baseball player whose career spanned nearly two decades. He played three years for Gregg Post, helping the team win the State Championship in 1933, and also competed for Newmanstown in the Lebanon Valley League. During World War II, Sosh served four years in the U.S. Air Force, playing on several service teams and twice leading his team in batting. After the war, he enjoyed an 18-year minor league career as both a catcher and manager. He played in the Boston Red Sox system at Rocky Mount, NC, catching for Reading’s Charlie Wagner in the Piedmont League, and later competed for Hazelton, Scranton, Dayton, Elmira, Grand Rapids, and Durham. In the late 1940s, Branch Rickey named him manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Daytona Beach team, where Sosh batted .316 over a 119-game schedule. He went on to play for Mobile in the Southern Association, winning the batting title with a .320 average, and in the 1950s, he captured another batting title with Ogdensburg of the Border League, hitting .348. Sosh also managed Kingston and St. Hyacinth in the Provincial League, winning the pennant in 1952 for the Philadelphia A’s farm club. Over his minor league career, he compiled an impressive .324 batting average for twelve different clubs.

Deceased