Lou Boudreau

Boudreau was born in Harvey, Illinois, the son of Birdie (Henry) and Louis Boudreau.[2] His father was of French ancestry, his mother was Jewish, and both of his maternal grandparents were observant Orthodox Jews with whom when he was young he celebrated Passover seders.[3][4] He was raised Catholic by his father after his parents divorced.[5][3][6][7] He graduated from Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Illinois where he led the "Flying Clouds" to three straight Illinois high school championship games, winning in 1933 and finishing as runner up in 1934 and 1935.[8]

Boudreau in his Illinois Fighting Illini basketball jersey, circa 1937.

Boudreau attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and captain of the basketball and baseball teams. During the 1936–37 basketball and baseball seasons, Boudreau led each Fighting Illini team to a Big Ten Conference championship.[9] During the 1937–38 basketball season, Boudreau was named an NCAA Men's Basketball All-American.[9]

While still at Illinois, Cleveland Indians general manager Cy Slapnicka paid him an undisclosed sum in return for agreeing to play baseball for the Indians after he graduated. Due to this agreement, Boudreau was ruled ineligible for collegiate sports by the Big Ten Conference officials.[10][11] During his senior year at Illinois, he played professional basketball with the Hammond Ciesar All-Americans of the National Basketball League.

Despite playing professional baseball with Cleveland, Boudreau earned his Bachelor of Science in education from Illinois in 1940 and worked as the Illinois freshman basketball coach for the 1939 and 1940 teams. Boudreau stayed on as an assistant coach for the 1941–42 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team and he was instrumental in recruiting future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee Andy Phillip to play for Illinois.[9]

Boudreau is credited with inventing the infield shift, which came to be known colloquially as the "Boudreau shift." Because slugging Red Sox superstar Ted Williams was a dead-pull hitter, he moved most of his Cleveland Indian fielders to the right of second base against the Splendid Splinter, leaving only the third baseman and left fielder to the left of second but also very close to second base, far to the right of their normal positions. With characteristic stubborn pride, Williams refused the obvious advice from teammates to hit or bunt to left against the Boudreau shift, but great hitter that he was, not changing his approach against the shift didn't affect his hitting very much.

Boudreau later admitted that the shift was more about "psyching out" Williams rather than playing him to pull. "I always considered the Boudreau shift a psychological, rather than a tactical" ploy, he declared in his autobiography Player-Manager.

Cubs broadcasters, July 13, 1965 – Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau

Boudreau did play-by-play for Cub games in 1958–59 before switching roles with manager "Jolly Cholly" Charlie Grimm in 1960. But after only one season as Cubs manager, Boudreau returned to the radio booth and remained there until 1987. He also did radio play-by-play for the Chicago Bulls in 1966–1968 and worked on Chicago Blackhawks games for WGN radio and television as well.

The presence of a Hall of Fame announcer affected at least one game. On June 23, 1976, the Cubs were two runs behind at home in the fourth inning of the second game of a doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates at home when the umpires called the game on account of darkness (since there were no lights at Wrigley Field until 1988), announcing that the game would be resumed at the same point the next day as was normally the case in those days. But Boudreau knew the rules better than anyone else in the park, it turned out, for he went down quickly to the clubhouse and pointed out to the umpires that a game that was not yet an official game could not be treated as a suspended game (i.e., it had not gone five innings, or four and a half with the home team leading, as neither was the case), and as such had to be replayed from the first pitch (as was then the rule in a rain-out). The umpires called the National League office, found Boudreau was correct, and removed the two-run Cubs deficit.[16]

Lou Boudreau's number 5 was retired by the Cleveland Indians in 1970.

Boudreau was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970 with 77.33% of the vote. That same year, his uniform number 5 was retired by the Cleveland Indians (he wore number 4 with the Red Sox). In 1973, the city of Cleveland renamed a street bordering Cleveland Municipal Stadium after Boudreau.[11] Boudreau Drive in Urbana, Illinois is also named after Boudreau.

In 1990, the Cleveland Indians established The Lou Boudreau Award, which is given every year to the organization's Minor League Player of the Year.[17][18] In 1992, Boudreau's number 5 jersey was retired by the Illinois Fighting Illini baseball program. Boudreau is only one of three Illinois Fighting Illini athletes to have their number retired; the other two athletes being Illinois Fighting Illini football players Red Grange and Dick Butkus.[9][19]

Boudreau married Della DeRuiter in 1938, and together they had four children. His daughter Sharyn married Denny McLain, a former star pitcher with the Detroit Tigers who was the last 30-game winner in the major leagues (31–6 for the world champion 1968 Detroit Tigers).

Boudreau had a home in Frankfort, Illinois, for many years. He died on August 10, 2001, due to cardiac arrest at St. James Medical Center in Olympia Fields, Illinois. He was 84. He received a Catholic funeral and his body was interred in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.[9][20]

• List of Major League Baseball batting champions
• List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
• List of Major League Baseball player-managers
• List of Major League Baseball managers by wins
• Van Lingle Mungo (song)

• Boudreau, Lou (2017). Lou Boudreau: My Hall of Fame Life on the Field and Behind the Mic. ISBN 978-1683580461.
• Lou Boudreau SABR Biography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lou Boudreau.

• Lou Boudreau at the Baseball Hall of Fame
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
• Lou Boudreau managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
• "Lou Boudreau Baseball Statistics [1938–1952]". thebaseballcube.com. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
• Lou Boudreau at The Deadball Era
• Lou Boudreau at Find a Grave