Ray Stoviak


Raymond Thomas Stoviak was an outfielder in Major League Baseball. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1938. He was the last player to be struck out in a major league game at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, on June 30, 1938.
Stoviak graduated from Villanova College in 1938, where he quarterbacked the Wildcats for three years and helped compile a record of 22-4-2. During that span, he played for Harry Stuhldreher, one of the fabled Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, as well as Maurice J. "Clipper" Smith. In 1937, Stoviak led the Wildcats to the Bacardi Bowl in Cuba. There, Villanova battled Alabama Polytechnic Institute to a 7-7 tie, capping an 8-0-1 season for the Wildcats. He was inducted into Villanova`s Varsity Club Hall of Fame on June 8, 1989.
During World War II, he was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Navy stationed at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Pensacola, Florida, where he coached baseball with Bob Kennedy and Ted Williams. He was appointed football coach and mathematics faculty at Meriden High School September, 1953, and later served as assistant football coach at Yale University under Jordan Olivar.