Don Lund | Legendary University of Michigan baseball coach dies at 90

Don Lund, a three-sport star at the University of Michigan, and a major league outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, and St. Louis Browns for seven seasons, passed away Tuesday due to natural causes. He was 90.

Much of Lund’s acclaim comes from his status at Michigan where he was revered not only for his athletic prowess, lettering nine times in baseball, basketball, and football, but also for succeeding the legendary Ray Fisher as the head baseball coach at his alma mater. He coached there from 1959-62, winning the Big Ten Championship in 1961, and the National Championship in his final season.

Don Lund / Author's Collection

Mike Joyce, who went on to pitch two seasons with the Chicago White Sox in the major leagues, was one of the aces for Lund’s Big Ten Championship team in 1961. Speaking with Joyce shortly after the news of Lund’s death, he displayed tremendous pride to have played under his tutelage.

“While he was not a pitcher, he was a pretty good student of the game,” Joyce said via telephone. “He used to say, ‘The secret of pitching is to relax and concentrate.’ Fifty-four years ago he suggested that and I still haven’t forgotten that. He made the execution a lot simpler without trying to be the master of everything.”

Despite only coaching at Michigan for four seasons, Lund had a profound impact on the program, developing future major leaguers such as Bill Freehan, Fritz Fisher, and Joyce. Never during his playing days did he imagine that he would be the part of the link from Branch Rickey to Fisher.

“I never thought it [coaching at Michigan] would happen when I signed with the Dodgers,” Lund said in a 2009 interview. “Branch Rickey was the coach of the University of Michigan when he was in Law School, then it was Ray, and then I. It is such a small world; you would never think that it would happen.”

Lund almost went professional in another sports, as he was a first-round draft choice of the Chicago Bears, but turned down that offer to sign with the Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers. He signed for a $7,500 bonus right out of Michigan and three weeks later he was in Leo Durocher’s clubhouse. That three week delay included a few trips to New York, as well as his college graduation, which left him little time to be ready for his major league debut.

“Our college season ended and then there was graduation,” Lund said. “It was another two-to-three weeks before I played another game. I had gone to New York, signed a contract, came back home, and then went back to Brooklyn.”

He made his debut July 3, 1945, without stepping foot in the minor leagues. His first ride in with Brooklyn wouldn’t last very long.

“It was just a token thing,” he said. “I pinch hit, but they could see I wasn't ready to play and they sent me to St. Paul.”

He worked diligently in the minors, and was rewarded with another stay in Brooklyn at the start of the 1947 season, just in time to be on the bench for Jackie Robinson’s debut. About a week before Robinson made history by breaking baseball’s color barrier, Lund homered in a spring training game and was greeted by Robinson at home plate. The photo is immortalized on the cover of Lund’s 2009 biography, “Playing Ball with Legends”.

Lund played in the major leagues through 1954, with his best season coming in 1953, when he batted .257 with nine home runs and 47 RBIs in 421 at-bats for Detroit. After working with the Tigers as their farm system director from 1963-70, Lund returned to Michigan for a 22-year stay as an assistant athletic director until his 1992 retirement.

Spending nearly 50 years in a wide encompassing athletic career, Lund’s greatest accomplishment may not have been anything that he did on the field, but the impact that he left on the young men under his watchful eye.

“He was first and foremost a gentleman; somebody who made you proud to be associated with, whether or not you were a baseball player or a normal person,” Joyce said. “What I most appreciated was that he respected people that worked hard, he did not play favorites, and on top of everything else, he made it fun to play baseball.”

* - This article was originally published for Examiner.com on December 10, 2013.

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Len Okrie, catcher for Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox, dies at 94

Len Okrie, former major league catcher and World War II veteran, passed away April 12, 2018 in Hope Mills, North Carolina. He was 94.

Okrie, like many baseball players of his era, put his major league dreams on hold during World War II. Drafted after one year in the minor leagues, Okrie set his sights on helping the United States Navy crack Japanese communications.

“I was drafted here in Fayetteville,” Okrie said during a 2008 interview from his home. “I served 1942-1945 in the Navy. I went to radio school to learn the Japanese code. We broke the Japanese code where we were stationed. We had to go to college to learn it all. To learn that stuff, it sure was complicated. I enjoyed it. I would have stayed in [college] if I [weren’t] bought by the Senators to go into the big leagues. I was playing softball in the war because that's all they had.”

Len Okrie / Boston Red Sox

He was able to shake off the playing rust quickly, emerging as the Senators top catching prospect after batting .314 at Fayetteville in 1947. His play on both sides of the ball impressed Washington Senators scout Mike Martin, accelerating his move from the Cubs organization to the nation’s capitol.

“I did pretty good coming back,” he said. “I was scouted by the Washington scout [Martin] and he said that I was the best catcher they had seen and I would be a good asset to the ball club. I only had a year and a half in the minor leagues and then went to the big leagues.”

Okrie debuted in 1948, pressed into action after both of Washington’s catchers went down with injuries. He hit .238 in limited duty and spent the 1949 season in AAA for more seasoning. When he returned in 1950, he found a new challenge in addition to deciphering big league pitching, a Cuban pitching staff.

“I caught [Conrado] Marrero, [Sandy] Consuegra, all of those Cubans,” he said. “With Marrero, he had a good slider. He could not understand the signs, so I used to tell [them], 'Go ahead and throw, I'll catch anything you throw.' They had a lot of Cubans; Joe Cambria brought all of those guys. Pretty good bunch of kids, they could throw well and were pretty smart.”

Now that Okrie was establishing himself as a fully-fledged major leaguer, he was also fulfilling a family legacy, as his father Frank pitched for the Detroit Tigers in 1920. His parents laid the foundation for his baseball aspirations.

“My father played big league ball,” he said. “He taught me a lot when I was a kid. [We played] every day in the backyard or on the ball field. Now there is not enough communication with the parents. My mom, dad, and sister used to chase the balls during practice. They were very proud when I made it to the big leagues; they used to sit in the stands. He told me to play hard and keep my nose clean. We never ran around; it was all baseball, period. [You] ate it, slept it, and everything else.”

Okrie last parts of four seasons in the majors, primarily with Washington, save for one game with the Boston Red Sox in 1952. While adequate defensively, his bat could no longer keep with his glove, posting batting averages well below .200 in his final few minor league seasons.

He quickly transitioned into the role of a minor league coach, eager to share his father’s teachings with the next generation of baseball players. He started in 1954 in the Red Sox chain and spent close to twenty seasons developing players in their farm system, as well as that of the Detroit Tigers. One of his prized pupils was Jim Leyland.

“I coached and managed in their chains,” he said. “I had Jim Leyland, he was my buddy. I kept him in baseball when he was in Lakeland. I needed a helper and I needed a coach, so I kept him in baseball. I knew he was a clean cut kid and I liked him very much. He is doing a good job. I told the Tigers that I would like to keep him. Wherever I went, he went. He was my little backup catcher.”

After stepping away from baseball, Okrie went into law enforcement working as a desk sergeant for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department. While in retirement, he kept his full attention on the game. Despite the tremendous difference in salaries, over 50 years later, baseball still captivated his soul.

“I watch baseball everyday if I can get it,” he said. “It's a great game, but I don't see the money they make. Maybe they deserve it, I don't know. We never made that money back then. It's awful, [but] I don't blame the kids. If management wants to give the kids that much money, more power to them. We never got it, my highest salary was $5,000 per year and I finally got $18,000 when the Red Sox bought me.”

Turning his focus to modern major leaguers, he shared his father’s advice about professional conduct. Even though his father played in the majors almost a century ago, his advice still rings true to this day.

“If you are going to get paid, like my dad said, you give them 100 percent,” he said. “When you put that uniform on, it's all baseball; you run hard and you play hard. When you are off, you relax. Don't dissipate. Don't run around. I never did. That's how I stayed in it so long.”

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Baseball Happenings Podcast - Jim Allen explains Shohei Ohtani's meteoric rise

Shohei Ohtani dazzled Los Angeles Angels fans in his first home start, taking a perfect game into the seventh inning before Marcus Semien broke up his bid for baseball immortality with a one-out single. After an underwhelming spring training, Ohtani has silenced his critics by blasting three home runs in his first week as a DH, and pitching to near perfection to start his second.

Shohei Ohtani / Topps

Shortly after Ohtani’s epic pitching performance against the Oakland Athletics, we spoke with renown baseball author Jim Allen, who has been covering Japanese baseball for the past 30 years. Having followed Ohtani since high school, he explains during this interview why he isn’t the least bit surprised that a healthy Ohtani is putting on a show for MLB fans.

He currently writes for the Kyodo News and is on Twitter @JBallAllen.

Baseball Happenings Podcast - Jim Allen Interview

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Carl Scheib, 91, was a two-way phenom long before Shohei Ohtani

Carl Scheib, the youngest player ever in the history of the American League, passed away March 24, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. He was 91.

Scheib first tried out with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1942 at age 15 and the legendary Connie Mack told him to come back the next spring for another look. With the encouragement of his father, Scheib left high school after spring break in 1943 to sign with the A’s as a batting practice pitcher.

Carl Scheib batting / Sunbury Press

As the World War II draft started to deplete the Athletics roster, Scheib’s prospects for being a major leaguer looked brighter. He started to travel with the team in the summer to away contests and after pitching well in an August exhibition game, Mack was ready to make history.

“Don't you think it's about time?” Mack asked Scheib.

On Monday September 6th, 1943, Mack signed Scheib to a contract right before they were to play a doubleheader against the New York Yankees. In the final inning of the second game, Scheib relieved with one out in the ninth, pitching two-thirds of an inning to close the contest. At the age of 16 years, 8 months, and 5 days, Scheib made history as the youngest player in the major leagues, a record he held until Joe Nuxhall took the mound for the Cincinnati Reds in 1944.

Scheib proved he was not a publicity stunt, pitching respectably in five more games with a 4.34 ERA to finish off 1943. Mack decided to make good on his investment and brought Scheib along slowly in 1944, pitching him exclusively in relief for all 15 of his appearances. As 1945 approached, he hoped for an expanded role, but now that he was 18, Uncle Sam had different plans for the young hurler.

“I was drafted,” Scheib told me during a 2009 interview from his home in San Antonio. “We had started the season in 1945 in Washington. A couple of guys came up from the Air Base there in Pennsylvania and picked me up in an airplane. They wanted me to [be] stationed with the Air Force. Evidently, I didn't have enough education to stick with them so I went in the Army. I did my basic training in Macon, Georgia.”

Once his base commander discovered he pitched in the majors, Scheib was put on the base team. He continued to pitch with the 60th Reigment when he went overseas.

“We played quite a bit after we got overseas,” he said. “The war was over and we were kind of occupation troops. There were was one guy who tried to get a baseball team together. I was in a good position there; I didn't want to get transferred. We won the European Theater championships over there. … Baseball was big there overseas. We had 50,000 people at one game. The Germans didn't play much baseball, but when we were done they were playing in the streets.”

When he returned to Philadelphia in 1947, he started an eight-year run as one of the most reliable pitchers on the A’s staff, appearing in 239 games as both a starter and reliever. As much as Mack valued Schieb on the mound, he also sparkled at the plate, batting a robust .298 in 1948 and a team leading .396 in 1951.

As Mack tinkered with his pitching rotation and the A’s struggled at the hit, he looked to Scheib to boost the team’s offensive production. Coming off the bench as a pinch hitter when he wasn’t pitching, Scheib had two game-winning pinch hits in 1948, giving Mack the idea to try him in the outfield. During the last two games in 1948, Scheib started in the outfield, plating one runner in six at-bats.

While the A’s continued to use Scheib as a pinch hitter, he never made another outfield appearance in the major leagues. He relished the opportunity to get another chance, but with pitching at a premium, the A’s could not afford to sacrifice his arm for his bat.

“I wanted to play the outfield so bad,” he said. “I done very good pinch hitting and I did play a couple of games in the outfield, but they always needed pitchers. [It was] back to the pitching mound. It was tough to get a good [rotation] of pitchers.”

In his 11 big league seasons, Scheib put up a 45-65 record in 267 games primarily for the A’s from 1943-1954, save for three games with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Carl Scheib (7th from left) at Bobby Shantz's field dedication in 2007 / N. Diunte

After his baseball career, he ran a car wash for 12 years and then worked in sales and installations for the same car wash owner according to his SABR bio until his retirement at age sixty-two.

In retirement, he was a fixture at the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society reunions, and in 2016 he published his memoirs, “Wonder Boy - The Story of Carl Scheib” with author Lawrence Knorr.

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2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball Review - A new twist on a time honored tradition

The baseball teams have made their way north, far away from their respites in the spring training sun to the realities of another Major League season. This annual tradition is honored with the release of the 2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball set. Emblazoned with the Opening Day logo, this set serves as a happy reminder that baseball has once again arrived.

2018 Topps Opening Day / Topps

Topps keeps things short and sweet with the 2018 Opening Day Baseball set, as it checks in at a lean 200 cards. While Opening Day is concentrated on a small amount of players, Topps still managed to get in a bevy of rookies and prospects to the set including the coveted Shohei Ohtani.

With a price point of $36 for a 36-pack box, and a guarantee of one insert per pack, 2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball is an affordable entry point to get young fans involved in the collecting hobby. Families will have fun opening a box to compile a complete set, as the box provided for this review not only yielded all 200 base cards, but a few doubles to boot.

New to 2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball is the Before Opening Day insert set, which gives fans a look at their favorite players during spring training. The Team Traditions and Celebrations insert set spotlight franchise staples such as Yankees Old Timer’s Day and new quirks such as Beat the Freeze from the Atlanta Braves.

2018 Topps Opening Day Inserts / Topps

While Opening Day is positioned towards a younger demographic with their Mascot inserts, Topps has added a degree of scarcity to their autograph and relic inserts for this set. By placing them at the rate of one per every 1-2 cases, Topps has given collectors a further reason to go deeper into this product beyond the base set.

2018 Topps Opening Day Inserts / Topps

Sporting an improved insert lineup and a base set that includes Shohei Ohtani’s first official Topps rookie card, 2018 Topps Opening Day Baseball set has positioned itself as a cost-effective option for fans to get started collecting this baseball season without feeling like they’ve broken the bank in the process.

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