Carl Lundgren

Carl Lundgren

Carl Leonard "Lundy" Lundgren (February 16, 1880 – August 21, 1934) was an American baseball and football player and coach.

Lundgren played football and baseball for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and played eight seasons of Major League Baseball as a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. In eight years with the Cubs, he compiled a record of 91 wins and 55 losses. His best season was 1907 when he won 18 games, pitched 207 innings without allowing a home run, threw seven shutouts, and gave up only 27 earned runs in 28 games. His 1.17 earned run average was the second lowest in the Major Leagues, and his average of 5.652 hits allowed per nine innings was the lowest in the Major Leagues.

Control problems held him back from greater renown. The Atlanta Constitution in 1913 summarized Lundgren's 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."

After retiring as a player, Lundgren became a coach. He was the head baseball coach and assistant football coach at the University of Michigan from 1914 to 1921. He was the head baseball coach and assistant athletic director at the University of Illinois from 1921 until his death in 1934. Lundgren's baseball teams at Michigan and Illinois won eight Big Ten Conference baseball championships, a total exceeded by only three other coaches in Big Ten history.