Michigan, Detroit Tigers legend Don Lund dies at age 90; Played with Browns in 1948

ANN ARBOR – Former University of Michigan three-sport athlete and Hall of Honor inductee Don Lund died in his Glacier Hills home early on Dec. 10 at the age of 90. 

Lund, who was born in Detroit on May 18, 1923, attended the University of Michigan in the early 1940s and played baseball, basketball and football, lettering nine times as a student-athlete.

In 1945, he was a first-round NFL draft pick of the Chicago Bears, but instead chose to sign a minor league baseball deal with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Two years later – on April 12, 1947 – the Dodgers signed both Lund and Jackie Robinson to their first Major League Baseball contracts.

Lund spent seven seasons in the majors, batting .240 with 15 home runs and 86 RBI in 281 career games.

He played with the Dodgers from 1945-1948 when he was traded to the Browns. He appeared in 64 games with the Browns in '48. Lund was traded to Detroit and played with the Tigers in 1949. He played in the minors in 1950-1951 and finished his career back with Detroit from 1952-1954.

Lund was scheduled to attend the Browns Historical Society luncheon this past September, but was unable to travel due to health issues. The Historical Society was able to interview him during the luncheon with a telephone conference call broadcast to all in the banquet hall. 

Lund worked in the Detroit Tigers’ front office from 1963-70, then returned to U-M, where he served as an assistant athletic director from 1970 to his retirement in 1992.

Lund was inducted into the U-M Hall of Honor in 1984 and the state of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

His live interview, by telephone, before an assembled crowd of 450 at the St. Louis Browns Historical Society Banquet, September 26, 2013, was his last public appearance.

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My Father's Baseball Glove

By Gary Schwab
gschwab@charlotteobserver.com

By Gary Schwab The Charlotte Observer

 

The person who usually handles questions about baseball gloves, the “Glove Man” they call him, is not in when I call Rawlings Sporting Goods in St. Louis. Instead, I’m transferred to Ruth in public relations.

I try to explain what I’m looking for, without really knowing, and Ruth says, “I understand about fathers.”

Twenty seconds later, she’s back on the phone.

“Maybe this will help in your story,” she says, and starts to read:

“A baseball glove is a beginning and an ending . . .”

***

You get only so many baseball gloves in a lifetime.

I have a home movie where, in short pants on an Easter, I unwrap my first baseball glove.

My second glove took me through Little League.

My third was stolen from my high-school locker.

My parents gave me my fourth glove as a present when I was 26.

I won’t get another. I’m 42 now and will use the glove I have for the rest of my life.
My father only had one glove in my time with him. It’s a Rawlings T-70, “the George McQuinn Claw.”

McQuinn was an All-Star first baseman for the St. Louis Browns in the late ’30s and early ’40s. He’s remembered by baseball history books as a “solid-hitting, excellent-fielding first baseman.”

My dad would have preferred a Lou Gehrig model, his hero, but that year Rawlings didn’t offer a glove named after the great Yankees player.

In 1943, when a five-piece maple dinette set sold for $29.85 and kids under 12 got in the local Broadway Theatre for free, the Claw was a top-of-the-line model at $15.35.

It’s listed as “the hit of ’41 and ’42” in an ad on page 345 of the 1943 Baseball Guide and Record Book, next to a Pacific Coast League schedule that includes the notation “Buy War Bonds to Speed Victory.”

In 1943, the country was in the the heart of World War II. My dad was 15, a left-handed first baseman, then and always. In baseball, you become your position if you play it long enough, and I never imagined him anywhere other than at first.

Extension of his hand . . . .  Read the rest of the story at: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/09/4532600/my-fathers-baseball-glove.html#.Uqc93k2A0Sk

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/09/4532600/my-fathers-baseball-glove.html#.Uqc93k2A0Sk#storylink=cpy