Bob Lemon

Bob Lemon

Robert Granville "Bob" Lemon (September 22, 1920 – January 11, 2000) was an American right-handed pitcher and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). Lemon was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as a player in 1976.

Lemon was raised in California where he played high school baseball and was the state player of the year in 1938. At the age of 17, Lemon began his career in the franchise's minor league systems when he was signed by the Cleveland Indians, with whom he played for his entire professional career. Lemon originally joined the major league Indians in 1941 as a utility player. He then joined the United States Navy during World War II and returned to the Indians in 1946. That season was the first Lemon would play at the pitcher position.

The Indians played in the 1948 World Series and were helped by Lemon's two pitching wins as they won the club's first championship since 1920. In the early 1950s, Cleveland had a starting pitching rotation which included Lemon, Bob Feller, Mike Garcia and Early Wynn. During the 1954 season, Lemon had a career-best 23–7 win-loss record and the Indians set a 154-game season AL-record win mark when they won 111 games before they won the American League pennant. He was a seven-time consecutive All-Star and recorded seven seasons of 20 or more pitching wins in a nine-year period from 1948–1956.

Lemon was a manager with the Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and twice with the New York Yankees. He was named Manager of the Year with the White Sox and Yankees. In 1978, he was fired as manager of the White Sox and one month later named Yankees manager and led the team to a championship, the first American League manager placed mid-season to win a World Series in the same season.