Carl Lundgren

Lundgren was born in Marengo, Illinois in 1880. His father, Pehr Hjalmar Lundgren, was born in Östergötland, Sweden, emigrated to the United States in 1868 and worked as a house painter, contractor and interior decorator. His father purchased a farm north of Marengo, where the family lived until 1900. He was the oldest of four children, having a younger brother, Franz Emil, and two younger sisters, Eva and Alma. ==University of Illinois==

Lundgren enrolled at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign in 1898, studied civil engineering, and graduated in 1902. While at Illinois, he played at the halfback and fullback positions for the Illini football team for three years. He was also a pitcher for the Illini baseball team from 1899 to 1902 and was the team captain in 1902. ==Chicago Cubs==

The Chicago Cubs saw Lundgren pitch in an exhibition game between the Illinois college team and the Cubs. The Cubs gave Lundgren a tryout, and he made his major league debut for the Cubs on June 19, 1902, shortly after completing his studies at the University of Illinois. One sports writer noted that "the Cubs had a new pitcher, and the world lost a civil engineer." However, he did not pitch in any of the Cubs' World Series games. His earned run average jumped from 1.17 in 1907 to 4.22 in 1908. He appeared in only two games for the Cubs in 1909, pitching his last major league game on April 23. At the end of April 1909, the Cubs placed Lundgren on waivers for a price of $1.50. Lundgren's biggest weakness as a pitcher was lack of control. Even in 1907, his best year, Lundgren averaged 4.0 walks per nine innings pitched. In 1909, he averaged 8.3 walks per nine innings before being released. A profile of Lundgren published in 1913 by The Atlanta Constitution discussed his strengths and weaknesses:"He had everything including speed to burn green hickory and an assortment of curves that would keep a criptograph specialist figuring all night but he was wild as a March hare in a cyclone and couldn't locate the plate with a field glass. ... He had a strange hold on the art of steering the ball away from the plate that would make Wild Willie Donovan and Cy Seymour look like a brace of pikers who had been touched for their meal tickets." Lundgren was called "the best cold-weather pitcher in the profession" by the Reach Baseball Guide. In the summer of 1909, Lundgren appealed from a decision by the Cubs management to deny him a share of the team's $10,000 World Series bonus for 1908. In June 1909, he won what was described as "a moral victory" when a non-binding decision was entered, declaring the exclusion of Lundgren to be unjust. ==Minor leagues==

After his major league career ended in April 1909, Lundgren played minor league baseball for several years. In the spring of 1909, several teams expressed interest in Lundgren. Bill Armour, manager of the Toledo, Ohio team, reportedly lost interest because of Lundgren's reputation as a cold-weather pitcher: "Armour, however, discovered that Lundgren is a good man in the spring and fall, but during the hot months, when his services would be most in demand, he is unable to stand the strain." The Cubs sold Lundgren to Brooklyn, and Brooklyn farmed him out to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern League for the 1909 season. However, he was suspended in June 1909 by Toronto manager Joe Kelley. A newspaper account on the suspension noted: "Lundgren is not in shape for a hard game, and the Toronto Club does not intend to pay him a big salary to get into shape when he's not half trying." In August 1909, he was reported to be "pitching independent ball around Chicago." During the 1910 season, he played for the Hartford Senators in the Connecticut State League, compiling a record of 6–3. At the end of the 1910 season, The Hartford Courant wrote: "Lundgren was regarded as the ablest pitcher in this league last season and he outclassed the other boxmen." Lungren also played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1910, compiling a 1–4 record. In what appears to have been Lundgren's last professional baseball game, he pitched a shutout against the Bridgeport Orators on September 10, 1912. There were newspaper reports in June 1913 indicating that Lundgren had a tryout with the Mobile team in the Southern League and that he had signed with the Atlanta Crackers or the Charleston Sea Gulls, but no record has been found of his playing for those teams. ==Coaching career==

In March 1912, Lundgren was hired to assist Boileryard Clarke in coaching the pitchers at Princeton University in 1912. After a short stint with Princeton, Lundgren returned to the field as a player with Hartford in June 1912. In January 1913, the University of Iowa expressed interest in hiring Lundgren as its baseball coach, but it appears that the deal fell through after the Iowa Board of Athletics was asked to meet his salary demands. In February 1913, he was also interviewed, but not hired, for the position of manager of a baseball team in Keokuk, Iowa. In August 1913, he was hired by the University of Michigan to succeed Branch Rickey as the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines baseball team. He was the baseball coach at Michigan from 1914 through 1920, compiling a record of 93–43–6. Lundgren developed several major league players at Michigan, including George Sisler, who became one of baseball's greatest players. While coaching at Michigan, Lundgren worked in the off-season as a traveling salesman. He was Illinois' baseball coach for 14 years until his death in 1934. His Illini teams won Big Ten championships in 5 of Lundgren's 14 years as coach and tied for another. Lundgren also served as the assistant athletic director at Illinois under George Huff. Lundgren's Michigan and Illinois baseball teams won eight Big Ten Conference baseball championships. Only three coaches have won more Big Ten baseball championships—George Huff of Illinois, Dick Siebert of Minnesota, and John Anderson of Minnesota. ==Personal life==

Lundgren married S. Maude Cohoon in September 1904. A historic marker has been placed in Marengo, Illinois commemorating his life and baseball career. ==See also==