Longtime Major League outfielder Elmer Valo is born in Rybnik, Czechoslovakia.

Valo logged 20 years of MLB service, including one season in Cleveland in 1959, and could have had even more if he, like so many of his era, had not sacrificed several years of playing time to serve the United States Army during World War II.

He debuted as a 19-year-old with Philadelphia’s American League team in 1940 and remained in the Athletics organization until his release by Kansas City in 1956. He returned to Philly with the Phillies that season and was traded the next year to the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Yankees, and the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise. Three times during his career the team that he was with relocated to a new city.

Following his playing career, he returned to Cleveland as a coach in 1963 and 1964 and was later a scout for the Phillies for 13 years.