Ailing Ex-Ballplayer, 70, Found Safe in El Segundo

A 70-year-old man with Alzheimer’s disease, reported missing since Sunday, was found early Wednesday wandering near an El Segundo park asking for directions to a baseball game, police said.

George (Catfish) Metkovich of Fountain Valley, who played with the Boston Red Sox in the 1946 World Series, was walking near El Segundo Recreation Park at 4:40 a.m. when officers found him, said El Segundo Police Lt. Ron Scheu.

“He was coherent and incoherent,” Scheu said. “He said he had been at a ballgame and then said he was looking for a ballgame to go to.”

Metkovich’s family reported him missing Sunday after he drove from his house, at 18191 Devonwood Circle, telling his wife that he wanted “to go home.”

“We’re just happy to have him home,” said his son, David Metkovich, 38. “When we were told he was in El Segundo, he was very surprised that he had been up there.”

Police were still looking Wednesday for Metkovich’s 1984 brown and beige Olds Toronado with license plate number AJ22.

Metkovich played in the major leagues between 1943 and 1954 for the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago White Sox, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Milwaukee Braves.