Lou Boudreau; Led Baseball’s Indians as Shortstop, Manager

Lou Boudreau, the Hall of Fame shortstop who managed the Cleveland Indians to the 1948 World Series championship has died at 84.

Boudreau suffered a cardiac arrest in Olympia Fields, Ill., Friday afternoon and was taken to St. James Hospital and Health Centers, where he was pronounced dead.

He had been hospitalized last month with circulatory problems that forced him to miss the Indians’ 100th-anniversary celebration that honored the team’s top 100 players.

Boudreau was named the Indians’ honorary captain for this season, but failing health prevented him from attending opening-day ceremonies.

“When Lou first came to spring training in 1938 in New Orleans . . . he didn’t look like much,” former Indian and Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller said. “Then I found out the guy who signed him also signed me and Herb Score and a few others. I figured Lou most have some ability there. He developed fast and he was the best shortstop I ever saw.”

Boudreau’s 13 seasons with the Indians, nine as a player/manager, included many milestones. He became the youngest manager in baseball history at 24 in 1941. He managed the team that integrated the American League, when Larry Doby joined the Indians in 1947.

Boudreau also is credited with turning Bob Lemon from a slight-hitting third baseman into a Hall of Fame pitcher and for inventing the Ted Williams shift, a defensive scheme that he used, unsuccessfully, when the Boston Red Sox slugger was at the plate.

There was also turmoil, as team owner Bill Veeck twice attempted to fire him. Boudreau ultimately was fired on Nov. 10, 1950, a year after Veeck sold the Indians, and replaced by Al Lopez. He played the 1950 and 1951 seasons with the Red Sox.

Boudreau left his mark primarily as a shortstop. He hit .295 during his career and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1970. His No. 5 was retired by the Indians that year.

Boudreau grew up in Harvey, Ill., and was a captain of the baseball and basketball teams at the University of Illinois. He nearly signed with the Chicago Cubs in 1937, then went with the Indians in 1938. He made his debut with the Indians late in the 1940 season.

In 1941, he hit .295 with 101 runs batted in and was named to the All-Star team. He led the league in batting in 1944 with a .327 average.

Boudreau applied for the manager’s job by writing a letter to team owner Alva Bradley and was hired on Nov. 25, 1941. He was immediately dubbed the “boy manager” by the press.

“He instilled confidence in his players,” Feller said.

In 1948, Feller was struggling and the press was questioning whether he should remain in the rotation.

“Lou said, ‘He is going to take his turns and we’re going to sink or swim with [him],’ ” Feller said.

Feller won 10 of his last 12 decisions.

In 1948, Boudreau was named the league’s most valuable player. He hit .355 with 18 home runs and 106 runs batted in.

The Indians, Red Sox, Philadelphia Athletics and New York Yankees were all in the race during the final weeks.

“We were playing the Yankees in a doubleheader and Lou sat himself down the first game because he had a sore arm,” Feller said. “Late in the game, one of our guys had two strikes on him and Lou sent himself up to pinch hit. He hit a line drive through the legs of the pitcher and into center field. We won that game and swept the doubleheader.”

In the one-game playoff against the Red Sox, Boudreau had two doubles and two home runs in an 8-3 victory.

Boudreau hit .273 in helping the Indians beat the Boston Braves in six games, Cleveland’s last World Series championship.

“He wasn’t afraid of anybody,” Feller said. “He was a great leader of men and a great strategist.”

Feller, though, doesn’t consider the Williams shift one of Boudreau’s best moves. In the second game of a doubleheader in 1946, Boudreau moved everyone but the left fielder to the right of second base when Williams came to the plate .

Williams hit a fly ball over the left fielder’s head for an inside-the-park home run.

“We lost the first game . . . and Lou told everyone what he was going to do when Williams came up in the second game,” Feller said. “Everyone kind of laughed and it didn’t hurt Ted’s hitting one bit.”

Boudreau handled a more serious situation in 1947, when Veeck signed Doby to play for the Indians. Jackie Robinson had integrated baseball earlier in the season when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Doby made his debut on July 5, 1947, and the atmosphere in the Indian clubhouse at Comiskey Park was tense.

Boudreau walked into the room with Doby and said, “Fellas, I want you to meet Larry Doby. As you know, he’s going to be with us.”

Boudreau made a point of warming up Doby on the sidelines before every game.

“It was a unique situation,” Boudreau said in a 1987 interview with The Times. “I couldn’t show too much favoritism to Larry in case I alienated other men on the team. . . . That first year, I was criticized by some for pushing him too much because he was the first black player. And I was criticized by others for not playing him more.”

But Boudreau stuck with Doby. He worked to cut down Doby’s swing and found him a position.

“Larry was a second baseman, but we already had Joe Gordon there,” Feller said. “So Lou put him in center field and he became a very good outfielder.”

While the players were behind Boudreau, owner Veeck was not.

When Veeck bought the team in 1946, he wanted Boudreau to step down so he could hire Casey Stengel. A year later, he tried to trade Boudreau to the St. Louis Browns.

Fans in Cleveland erupted. One telegram to Veeck read: “If Boudreau doesn’t return to Cleveland, don’t you bother to return, either.”

Veeck, who sold the team in 1949, gave Boudreau a two-year contract.

“I don’t know what it was that Veeck had against Lou,” Feller said. “But it made Veeck an unpopular man in Cleveland. He had to back down.”

Hank Greenberg, who had been the team’s general manager under Veeck, fired Boudreau in 1950.

Boudreau managed the Red Sox from 1952 to 1954, the Kansas City Athletics from 1955 to 1957 and the Cubs in 1960.

He also was a popular radio broadcaster for the Cubs for nearly 30 years before retiring in 1988.

Funeral arrangements were pending.