Ted Lyons

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Theodore Amar Lyons (December 28, 1900 - July 25, 1986) was an American Major League Baseball starting pitcher, manager and coach. He played 21 big league seasons, all of them with the Chicago White Sox.

Lyons broke into the major leagues in 1923 and 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 favourite in Chicago.

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

Lyons 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 his retirement as a player in 1942, including a stellar 1942 season in which he led the league with a 2.10 ERA and completed every one of his 20 starts.

Ted Lyons
is a member of
the Baseball
Hall of Fame

Lyons succeeded Dykes as the White Sox' manager in May 1946 but in 2¾ years enjoyed no more 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).

He never appeared in a postseason game, as the White Sox were usually far behind the American League leaders during his career. However, New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy said, "If he'd pitched for the Yankees, he would have won over 400 games."

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.