Lou Boudreau
Lou Boudreau | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Runs batted in | 789 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Managerial record | 1,162–1,224 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Winning % | .487 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Teams | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As player
As manager
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Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Member of the National | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Baseball Hall of Fame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Induction | 1970 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vote | 77.3% (tenth ballot) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Louis Boudreau (July 17, 1917 – August 10, 2001), nicknamed "Old Shufflefoot", "Handsome Lou", and "the Good Kid", was an American
Boudreau was an
In 1970, Boudreau was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as a player.
Early life
Boudreau was born in
College baseball and basketball
Boudreau attended the
While Boudreau was still at Illinois,
Despite playing professional baseball with Cleveland, Boudreau earned his Bachelor of Science in education from Illinois in 1940 and worked as the Illinois freshman basketball coach for the 1939 and 1940 teams. Boudreau stayed on as an assistant coach for the 1941–42 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team and he was instrumental in recruiting future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee Andy Phillip to play for Illinois.[9]
Professional baseball career
Cleveland Indians
Boudreau made his major league debut on September 9, 1938, for the
In 1940, his first full year as a starter, he batted .295 with 46 doubles and 101 RBI, and was selected for the All-Star Game for the first of five consecutive seasons (MLB cancelled the 1945 game due to war-time travel restrictions and did not name All-Stars).[13]
Boudreau helped make history in 1941 as a key figure in stopping the 56-game hitting streak by Joe DiMaggio. After two sparkling stops by Keltner at third base on hard ground balls earlier in the game, Boudreau snagged a bad-hop grounder to short barehanded and started a double play retiring DiMaggio at first.[14] He finished the season with a modest .257 batting average, but had a league-leading 45 doubles.
After the 1941 season, owner
Later career
Boudreau was released by the Indians as both player and manager following the 1950 season. He signed with the
Managerial record
Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
CLE | 1942 | 154 | 75 | 79 | .487 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1943 | 153 | 82 | 71 | .536 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1944 | 154 | 72 | 82 | .468 | 6th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1945 | 145 | 73 | 72 | .503 | 5th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1946 | 154 | 68 | 86 | .442 | 6th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1947 | 154 | 80 | 74 | .519 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1948 | 155 | 97 | 58 | .626 | 1st in AL | 4 | 2 | .667 | Won World Series (BSN) |
CLE | 1949 | 154 | 89 | 65 | .578 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE | 1950 | 154 | 92 | 62 | .597 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
CLE total | 1377 | 728 | 649 | .529 | 4 | 2 | .667 | |||
BOS | 1952 | 154 | 76 | 78 | .494 | 6th in AL | – | – | – | – |
BOS | 1953 | 153 | 84 | 69 | .549 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
BOS | 1954 | 154 | 69 | 85 | .448 | 4th in AL | – | – | – | – |
BOS total | 461 | 229 | 232 | .497 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
KC | 1955 | 154 | 61 | 93 | .396 | 6th in AL | – | – | – | – |
KC | 1956 | 154 | 52 | 102 | .338 | 8th in AL | – | – | – | – |
KC | 1957 | 103 | 36 | 67 | .350 | fired | – | – | – | – |
KC total | 411 | 151 | 260 | .367 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
CHC | 1960 | 137 | 54 | 83 | .394 | 7th in NL | – | – | – | – |
CHC total | 137 | 54 | 83 | .394 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
Total[15] | 2386 | 1162 | 1224 | .487 | 4 | 2 | .667 |
Boudreau shift
Boudreau is credited with inventing the
Boudreau later admitted that the shift was more about "psyching out" Williams rather than playing him to pull. "I always considered the Boudreau shift a psychological, rather than a tactical" ploy, he declared in his autobiography Player-Manager.
Broadcasting
Boudreau did play-by-play for Cub games in 1958–59 before switching roles with manager "Jolly Cholly" Charlie Grimm in 1960. But after only one season as Cubs manager, Boudreau returned to the radio booth and remained there until 1987. He also did radio play-by-play for the Chicago Bulls in 1966–1968 and worked on Chicago Blackhawks games for WGN radio and television as well.
The presence of a Hall of Fame announcer affected at least one game. On June 23, 1976, the Cubs were two runs behind at home in the fourth inning of the second game of a doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates at home when the umpires called the game on account of darkness (since there were no lights at Wrigley Field until 1988), announcing that the game would be resumed at the same point the next day as was normally the case in those days. But Boudreau knew the rules better than anyone else in the park, it turned out, for he went down quickly to the clubhouse and pointed out to the umpires that a game that was not yet an official game could not be treated as a suspended game (i.e., it had not gone five innings, or four and a half with the home team leading, as neither was the case), and as such had to be replayed from the first pitch (as was then the rule in a rain-out). The umpires called the National League office, found Boudreau was correct, and removed the two-run Cubs deficit.[16]
Later life and honors
Boudreau was elected to the
In 1990, the Cleveland Indians established The Lou Boudreau Award, which is given every year to the organization's Minor League Player of the Year.[17][18] In 1992, Boudreau's number 5 jersey was retired by the Illinois Fighting Illini baseball program. Boudreau is only one of three Illinois Fighting Illini athletes to have their number retired; the other two athletes being Illinois Fighting Illini football players Red Grange and Dick Butkus.[9][19]
Personal life
Boudreau married Della DeRuiter in 1938, and together they had four children. His daughter Sharyn married Denny McLain, a former star pitcher with the Detroit Tigers who was the last 30-game winner in the major leagues (31–6 for the world champion 1968 Detroit Tigers).
Boudreau had a home in Frankfort, Illinois, for many years. He died on August 10, 2001, due to cardiac arrest at St. James Medical Center in Olympia Fields, Illinois. He was 84. He received a Catholic funeral and his body was interred in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.[9][20]
See also
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
- List of Major League Baseball player-managers
- List of Major League Baseball managers by wins
- Van Lingle Mungo (song)
Notes
- ^ MLB cancelled the 1945 All-Star Game and did not name All-Stars that season.
References
- ^ "Lou Boudreau Stats". Baseball-Reference.com.
- ISBN 9780313311741. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- ^ ISBN 9780803264755– via Google Books.
- ISBN 9781561719730. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- ^ Chafets, Zev (1 July 2009). Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 104 – via Internet Archive.
lou boudreau jewish.
- ISBN 9781561719730– via Google Books.
- ^ Wisnia, Saul. "Ryan Braun and a Look at Other Jewish MVPs in MLB History". bleacherreport.com. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- ^ "100 Legends of Boys Basketball Tournament". ihsa.org. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e "Illini Legend, Baseball Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau Dies". University of Illinois DIA. 2001-08-21. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2014.
- ^ Urban, Richard (August 20, 2001). "Boudreau stood out as a player and manager". ESPN. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 978-0786446889.
- ^ a b "Ralph Berger, Baseball Biography Project, SABR.org". Bioproj.sabr.org. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
- ^ Baseball Did You Know? – VII, 1945 All Star Game Replacements [1] Retrieved July 26, 2015.
- ^ "John Holway, A Mystery Man in the End to DiMaggio's Streak, New York Times, July 15, 1990". New York Times. July 15, 1990. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
- ^ "Boudreau Managerial Record". Baseball Reference. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
- ^ "Cubs leave Bucs in dark – Chicago Tribune Archive". archives.chicagotribune.com. June 24, 1976. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- ISBN 9780975441930. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
- ^ MLB.com. "2B Jason Kipnis named Indians Minor League Player of The Week". mlb.com. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
- ^ "Baseball – Retired Number – Lou Boudreau". 2018. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
- ^ "Lou Boudreau Obituary". ChicagoTribune. Retrieved September 13, 2015 – via legacy.com.
Further reading
- Boudreau, Lou (2017). Lou Boudreau: My Hall of Fame Life on the Field and Behind the Mic. Sports.ISBN 978-1683580461.
- Lou Boudreau at the SABR Baseball Biography Project
External links
- Lou Boudreau at the Baseball Hall of Fame
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
- Lou Boudreau managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
- "Lou Boudreau Baseball Statistics [1938–1952]". thebaseballcube.com. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- Lou Boudreau at The Deadball Era
- Lou Boudreau at Find a Grave