Early years Lelivelt was born as Johannes Franciscus Lelivelt in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on 14 November 1885. His father was Franciscus Zacharias Lelivelt (later Frank) from
Groessen, his mother was Theodra Mattijssen (later Dora) from
Renkum. They married in Amsterdam on 19 June 1884, and emigrated to the US in 1887. Lelivelt made his major league debut with the Washington Senators in . He saw his most playing time during his years in Washington. However, his batting average would increase after he left the Senators.
Record hitting streak Lelivelt started the 1912 season with the Rochester Hustlers. The Hustlers had won pennants each of the three previous years. After his record hitting streak, the first-place Hustlers sold Lelivelt and
Tommy McMillen to the New York Highlanders. Lelivelt had a .351 batting average with 33 doubles for the Hustlers. The
Toronto Maple Leafs passed the Hustlers in the standings. The city of Rochester would not have another International League champion until 1928. The record hitting streak was lost to history until the 2007 version of the
International League Record Book recognized the hitting streak. Previous versions of the book would list the longest hitting streak as 36 games by
Bill Sweeney in .
Later years Lelivelt played from 1912 until 1914 as a part-time player. Despite having a .301 career major league average, he never was a full-time player. In 1914, several Naps players split time between the
Cleveland Naps and the
American Association Cleveland Bearcats in an effort to prevent the
Federal League from moving a team to Cleveland. Lelivelt was one of those players. He would play in the minor leagues until retiring as a player in 1925. ==Managerial career and death==