Ted Lyons - Career

Career

Lyons broke into the major leagues in 1923 after playing his collegiate baseball at Baylor University. He joined the White Sox on a road trip and never pitched a day in the minors. He recorded his first 2 wins as a relief pitcher in a doubleheader on October 6, 1923, making him one of the first pitchers to perform the feat. He worked his way into the starting rotation the following year, when he posted a 12–11 record and 4.87 ERA. Over the following 18 seasons, he won 20 or more games three times (in 1925, 1927, and 1930) and became a fan favorite in Chicago.

As Lyons aged, his career benefited from the White Sox's decision to never let him pitch more than 30 games per season from 1934 on. He was such a draw among the fans that, as his career began to wind down in 1939, manager Jimmy Dykes began using him only in Sunday afternoon games, which earned him the nickname "Sunday Teddy". Lyons made the most of his unusual scheduling, winning 52 of 82 decisions from 1939 until 1942.

During 1942, Lyons' 20th and last full season, he led the league with a 2.10 ERA and completed every one of his 20 starts. Although exempt from the military draft due to age, after the season he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and fought in the Pacific War. It is possible that Lyons would have finished his career with more than 300 wins without military service. He also made a brief return to the mound in 1946, with a 2.32 ERA in five games, all complete.

Lyons pitched a no-hitter on August 21, 1926, which took just 67 minutes to complete.

Lyons was at his crafty best in 1930, when he posted a 22–15 record and A.L.-leading totals of 29 complete games and 297⅔ innings for a team that finished 62–92.

Lyons succeeded Dykes as the White Sox' manager in May 1946 but in 2¾ years had less success as a manager than he had as a player, guiding them to a meager 185–245 record. He stopped pitching for good after 1946, having compiled a 260–230 record, 356 complete games, 1073 strikeouts and a 3.67 ERA. After severing his association with the White Sox in 1948, he coached the pitchers for the Detroit Tigers (1949–52) and Brooklyn Dodgers (1954).

Prior to a 1931 arm injury, his pitches included a "sailer" (now known as a cut fastball), knuckleball, curveball, and changeup. After the 1931 injury, his pitches included a fastball, slow curve, knuckleball and an even slower curveball used as a changeup.

He never appeared in a postseason game, as the generally mediocre-to-poor White Sox were usually far behind the American League leaders during his career. In Lyons' 21 seasons with the Sox, they finished fifth or lower (in an eight-team league) 16 times, and never finished higher than third. New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy said, "If he'd pitched for the Yankees, he would have won over 400 games."

Besides his 1955 election into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1981 Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included Lyons in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time

In 1987, the Chicago White Sox retired his uniform number, #16.