John Logan, Jr. is a former shortstop in Major League Baseball. Logan was signed by the Boston Braves in 1947. He was a four-time All-Star and led the National League in doubles in 1955. Logan was the first major league batter Sandy Koufax faced, and where he had a bloop single.

In a 13-season career, Logan was a lifetime .268 batter with 93 home runs and 547 RBIs in 1503 games. He has a total of 651 career runs scored and 19 stolen bases. He accumulated 216 doublesand 41 triples with a total of 1407 hits in 5244 career at bats. After his major league career, Logan played one season in Japan for the Nankai Hawks in 1964.

Johnny Logan is of Russian and Croatian descent. His father John Logan Sr., was from Tsaritsyn, nowVolgograd, and his mother Helen Senko, was born in Croatia but also lived in the borderland of Poland.

Johnny Logan was born in Endicott, New York, on March 23, 1926 and  passed away on August 9, 2013. (All of the standard references say he was born in 1927, but like many actresses and ballplayers, Johnny fibbed to make himself a bit younger.) He was the youngest of three children, who included brother Michael, now deceased, and sister Mary, still living in 2008.

Their father, John Logan Sr., was a native of Russia. "Stalingrad," Johnny says. "He was a guard in the Empire." The city would have been called Tsaritsyn back then. Johnny's mother, nee Helen Senko, was born in Croatia but also lived in the borderland of Poland. Both parents' families emigrated to America.

"Their families came from Europe and somehow landed in Pennsylvania when they were teenagers," Johnny says. "When they found out that Pennsylvania was kind of depressed, they packed up and went into Endicott, New York, north of the Pennsylvania line. My parents met in Endicott. They started working for the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company." After marrying and building a small nest egg, John and Helen Logan started their own business.

"They ran a grocery store," Johnny says, "a neighborhood store. When the people didn't have the money, they'd come up to Logan to take the credit. When they had the money, they went to the IGA. But that's where I got to know my neighborhood people. Things were rough then."

The family store did offer one benefit to young Johnny. "I was the most popular kid because every day when I went to school, I had bubblegum," he remembers. "Everybody hung around with me because they always knew I had my dad's free bubblegum. Bubblegum was like a Hershey bar."

As a young boy, Logan acquired a nickname by which he would be known as long as he lived in Endicott. "I must have been very active," Johnny says, "and in the Russian language, to settle a young kid, they'd say "Yah-shoo, yah-shoo. Just be quiet.' The word is a combination of Russian and Croatian. A guy on my street took that and gave me the name Yatcha, or Yatch. The name became very popular in Endicott." To anyone who followed high school athletics in Endicott, in fact, it became a household word.

Johnny received numerous awards and honors for his athletic prowess. His hometown of Endicott named a street for him following the Milwaukee Braves victory in the 1957 World Series. Then the town named a local ballpark for him. On August 26, 2005, the Milwaukee Brewers inducted Logan to their Milwaukee Braves Honor Roll in the concourse of Miller Park. In a pregame ceremony, Brewers radio announcer Jim Powell highlighted Johnny's baseball and civic achievements. He also described Johnny, with tongue firmly in cheek, as a "superb conversationalist," comparing him favorably to such language stylists as Dizzy Dean and Yogi Berra. 

more information: http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/4140a710