I once saw Don Lund, for whom the Ann Arbor chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research is named, tell one of its gatherings that he was the second most famous rookie to come north with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers. No 1 being Jackie Robinson.
And while Lund, who played parts of seven seasons with the Dodgers, St. Louis Browns and Detroit Tigers, certainly never had the Hall of Fame playing career of a Jackie Robinson, the Michigan native made his own mark on baseball as a national championship-winning manager at the University of Michigan. He passed away Tuesday in Ann Arbor at 90.
Lund's 1962 Wolverines won the College World Series for the just the second time in the school's history.
Detroit Free Press: Always searching for a new challenge, after leading Michigan to that 1962 national championship, he began working for the Tigers and became the farm director, grooming the bulk of the 1968 World Series championship team.
Yet he remained simply considerate and humble to all he met along the way.
“He was a man’s man without being macho,” [former player Dave]Campbell said. “He was fair, he led by example. We all had so much respect for what he had done … He could be stern when he needed to be, but he also had a gentle side.
Lund had been a three-sport letterman at Michigan and was a first round draft pick of the Chicago Bears in 1945. However, former Wolverine great and Hall of Famer George Sisler convinced him to stick with baseball and sign with Brooklyn.
He coached the Wolverines baseball team from 1959-62, before replacing Jim Campbell as the Tigers farm director. He later was U of M's assistant athletic director.
